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Police do not need a search warrant to knock on a suspected drug dealer’s door and then kick it down when a suspicious bustling noise is heard from the other side, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1.
Monday’s decision seemingly settles a legal issue to which the justices have given little guidance in the past: what type of “exigent circumstances” allow warrantless entry into a house. In this case, a lower court had thrown out the police search on the grounds that the cops effectively created their own emergency; the police had banged on the suspect door without a warrant, and then crashed through it moments later for fear that their knocking had set the inhabitants to destroying evidence. The police could have gotten the warrant before knocking in the first place, a dissenting justice ruled.
entire article
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/warrantless-house-search/
