From that Fox link.
My feelings about this is 1 - the criminal shoudl be charged using the evidence illegally obtained
2 - The cop should be also charged criminally for rights violation, and subject for civil suits.
Who else but the cops comes busting your door down 10 strong yelling and screaming “POLICE!!”? I don’t think this is a usual m.o. for home invaders and other assorted baddies.
Besides, in terms of you shooting one in “self defense”, in order for you to get a shot off you would almost have to be sitting in your room, facing the door with a loaded gun in your hands. Seems unlikely.
Or in your bedroom with a gun in the nightstand, and you hear the door crash in. Or you just outdraw the cops.
I’m confused. What does this mean? “sitting in their own waste by chance?” 
And, what’s the bonus?
Cops tend to come in with weapons already in hand, so outdrawing them would be impossible unless you were sitting weapon in hand.
They also yell “Police” about 300 times while coming in through the door. According to the book What Cops Know it minimizes their chances of being shot as indtruders.
My understanding is it is no where as bad as **Silenus ** fears.
The Police still need a warrant. They just are not required to be polite and announce who they are before knocking down the door.
The Pros: Less Police officers being shot through the door. Less Evidence destroyed via rapid disposal.
The Cons: People being scared horribly by surprise invasions. People being caught on the toilet or in a sexual act. Etc.
Personally, I do not like the change. I just do not think it is as bad as the Op Statement makes it sound.
Jim
That’s all very good - in theory. But as the example linked above shows, theory sometimes conflicts with reality.
Fear Itself nailed it. The steady erosion of our 4th Amendment rights must be fought tooth and nail. What’s next, the Miranda rule? Let’s throw out Mapp while we’re at it.
As and in a group, I neither like nor trust the police. Individually they can be some of the friendliest, most helpful people around. Get them in a group and give them shield of law, and they’re just another gang, with the same mentality and approach to citizens.
Let’s talk about “our Fourth Amendment rights.”
Why is NOW the exact right answer as far as the correct extension of our Fourth Amendment rights?
Before Mapp was decided, there was no federal constitutional exclusionary rule in state prosecutions. After Mapp, there was.
Why is the after-Mapp state of affairs the definitively correct answer derived from the Fourth Amendment?
(You may believe it’s a WISER answer. Me, too. But that’s not quite the same feeling as your statement gives me. Maybe I’m misreading your statement… enlighten me. Why must constitutional rights be a “one-way rachet,” with court decisions expanding them always correct and court decisions refusing to expand them always wrong?)
(Please note that the Court did NOT overturn some previous case which said, “In violations of no-knock, the evidence must be suppressed.” There was simply no case one way or the other. There was a case about ten years ago, Wilson v. Arkansas, that said protection from no-knock entries was a part of the Fourth Amendment, but it didn’t say that exclusion was the remedy.)
No, you read me right. I’m a paranoid, and I don’t trust government to respect my person, life and property. This is the job of the courts, and because the Government is so large, and I am so small (relatively speaking) I want the maximum possible protection. This means exclusionary rules, limits on searches, “handcuffs on police powers,” and everything else I can imagine. The courts are my safety net against the power of the State, which is currently actively moving in a direction I fear.
When you look at the abuses of State power, under the protection of the Law (see the Corey Maye story cited above), it becomes rational to be a little irrational about this subject.
It just seems that things are sliding down a slippery slope, and I don’t like what’s on the ride down. (Yes, I know, I know. Cut me some slack here.)
I’m not sure that this follows. While the decision may authorize police in possession of a generic search warrant (as opposed to one that specifically authorizes “dynamic entry”) to barge in without knocking and announcing, they may still have no legal recourse if they get blown away by a homeowner acting in the honest belief that they are criminal home invaders.
Particularly in states, such as Florida, which have enacted so-called “Castle doctrine” laws.
Exactly. That principle arose to give cops an incentive to respect the rights of the public.
I couldn’t agree more. I have heard far too many stories of cops covering up other cops’ crimes to have any respect for them anymore. Maybe I’m not being fair. I don’t know. But I can’t help but think, after all these stories I’ve heard, that there is a tremendously harmful culture among cops of protecting their own and taking whatever liberties with suspects that they can get away with. Cops aren’t much different from criminals - the two lines of work are filled with the same sort of people.
Meh. They say your home is your castle but they still won’t let me set traps filled with boiling oil.
Because some of us still believe that the rights of the citizens should have priority over the rights of the government. And that the Constitution was intended to protect the people from a too powerful government.
So any court decision that expands the rights of citizens is by definition correct, and you automatically support such a decision?
No. But any court decision that expands the rights of citizens is likely to be correct, and any court decision that takes those rights away should be given particularly heavy scrutiny.
Is such a court decision “likely to be correct” – meaning a correct interpretation of the federal constitution – or “likely to be correct” meaning likely to be the wisest policy decision?
And some of us don’t. In fact, if we took a poll, I bet more of us would agree with this decision than disagree with it.
Not sure why you chose to imbue your argument with the cloakings of popular support here.
I don’t think the first is really even a meaningful question. How can either answer be held as more correct than the other under the wording of the Constitution? The Constitution doesn’t directly address the issue; what it says is that we have a legal right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. Any strict constructionist like yourself has to recognize that that phrase is vague and nothing in the Constitution can directly answer the question - leastways without looking for “penumbras” and implied rights and other things that I don’t think you’re fond of.
But in terms of being a wise policy decision? It’s always wiser to err on the side of not taking people’s rights away. That’s an ethos that’s implicit throughout the Constitution, and explicit in the Ninth Amendment. It’s a fundamental assumption of modern democracy.