No-Knock Warrants To Be More Difficult

A plan to make it more difficult for police officers in Georgia to use the element of surprise when raiding the homes of criminal suspects -- enter and search a home without having to knock on the door first -- won approval Thursday in the state Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Vincent Fort, (D) Atlanta, would require officers who want to use so-called "no-knock" search warrants to go to a judge and prove that there is probable cause to believe that the officers' lives would be in danger if they knocked first, or that there is probable cause to believe that evidence inside the home would be destroyed -- such as drugs being flushed down a toilet -- if they knocked first.

"For the government to go into your house, they ought to be held to a higher standard," Fort said. "To go into your house without knocking, they ought to be held to a real high standard."

Georgia law already requires police officers to establish probable cause in order to obtain the search warrant itself. Fort's bill would require officers who want to execute the search warrant without knocking first to establish the additional probable cause reason -- either that their lives would be in danger, or that evidence would be destroyed, if they knocked first.

Police believe "probable cause" for "no-knock' entry is an unreasonably high standard for police officers on the street to meet, and that the current standard for getting "no-knock" authorization is strict enough.

"'Reasonable Suspicion' was established a long time ago by the courts as being the appropriate method to secure a warrant" with no-knock authorization, said Frank Rotondo, the Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police.

Rotondo believes if the bill were to become law, defense attorneys would find it easier to challenge evidence that was collected against their clients through the no-knock provision -- and even get the evidence thrown out -- by convincing another judge after the fact that police did not have enough probable cause to believe their lives were at risk or that evidence might be destroyed.

"Any evidence seized, if the warrant is deemed to be invalid, is thrown out, and, consequently, a good majority of the case would be thrown out... based upon the inability to establish probable cause [for not knocking first], a very high standard."

Fort has been trying to put tighter restrictions into the law for more than a year, as a result of what happened to 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in November, 2006.

That's when Atlanta police easily obtained a no-knock search warrant to raid Johnston's home on Neal St., NW, claiming to a magistrate judge that illegal drugs may be inside.

It turns out that the officers easily obtained the no-knock warrant fraudulently; Johnston was innocent. And, during the raid, officers shot her to death.

"If we had a higher standard" for obtaining no-knock search warrants, Fort said, "Ms. Johnston might still be alive today."

Rotondo said the problem is not the existing law, but cops who broke the law.

"The bill is clearly a reaction to an error in judgment made by officers" in the Johnston case, he said.

Committee members believed they were striking a balance between preserving a powerful, crime-fighting tool of police officers, and protecting innocent citizens from the possible abuse of no-knock warrants.

The bill has bipartisan support, and Sen. Fort is hoping to win approval in the full Senate, and send it to the House, by the end of the month.