|
|
Article: Fourth Amendment - must police knock and announce themselves before kicking in the door of a house?(Supreme Court Review)
- Article from:
- Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
- Article date:
- June 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Northwestern University, School of Law. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
I. INTRODUCTION
In Wilson v. Arkansas,(1) the United States Supreme Court addressed the question of whether an unannounced entry by police armed with a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.(2) This question had been left unanswered for over thirty years since the Court's ambiguous plurality decision in Ker v. California in 1963.(3) The Court in Wilson answered the question tentatively, holding that under some circumstances an unannounced entry by police acting under the authority of a search warrant will violate the Fourth Amendment.(4) The Court's holding was based entirely on historical grounds. After reviewing the history of the knock-and-announce ...