COURT PONDERS POLICE TACTIC

Balto. Co. Department Challenged On 'Knock And Talks' Technique

Maryland's highest court is deliberating a case that could determine
whether police officers violate the U.S. Constitution when they
randomly knock on doors and ask to enter a home.

The case centers on the Baltimore County Police Department's use of
"knock and talks" -- an investigative technique aimed at combating
drugs and prostitution in high-crime areas. The Court of Appeals will
decide if such searches violate a person's Fourth Amendment protection
against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"If you are in a motel, do you want a police officer banging on the
door at midnight just [so] he can talk to you and see if you have any
contraband in your room?" said Nancy S. Forster, chief attorney for
the Appellate Division of the public defender's office.

Police officers generally have the right to knock on doors randomly
without a warrant, but they cannot search a residence unless they get
permission, legal experts said.

The court will have to decide if people confronted by officers
conducting knock and talks investigations believe that they have the
option of telling officers they do not have permission to enter
without a warrant.

"The question is, would a reasonable person under the same
circumstances feel free to decline the police request to allow police
into the premises?" said Jerome Deise, a professor at the University
of Maryland School of Law. "They have every right to come up and ask,
but does a person feel there is genuine likelihood they will suffer
some recrimination by refusing?"

The case, which pits the Office of the Public Defender against the
attorney general's office, is the result of the conviction of Aaron
Scott in September on four counts of drug possession. He was sentenced
to 10 years in prison.

The Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Friday but has not set a
date for a decision.

Scott, 22, a Baltimore County resident, was staying at the Regal Inn
Motel on Pulaski Highway in May of last year when three plainclothes
officers knocked on his door at 11:38 p.m. and announced their presence.

One officer told Scott "there had been problems 'plaguing' Route 40
and asked if he could come in to talk," according to court briefs.

Scott let the officers in and was asked if he knew of any "illegal
activity," according to the briefs. The officers smelled marijuana and
asked if they could search the room.

Scott gave his consent, the court documents say, and the officers
discovered a shoebox that contained six pieces of crack cocaine, 63
vials of cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

On March 1, Forster asked the Court of Special Appeals -- the state's
second highest court -- to reverse Scott's conviction. However, the
Court of Appeals decided on its own to hear the case.

Forster said the search violated Scott's rights under the
Constitution.

"Absent probable cause or articulable suspicion to do so, knocking on
one's door late at night by the police constitutes an illegal seizure
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment," Forster said in her court
brief.

She also maintained that even if police were justified in knocking at
the door, Scott felt compelled to let the officers in the room because
he felt threatened.

"No reasonable person would have felt at liberty to ignore the
presence of three police officers pounding on a motel room at 11:38
p.m.," Forster said in the brief.

Gary Bair, chief of the Criminal Appeals Division of the attorney
general's office, disagreed.

He argued the case for the state and called knock and talks a valuable
tool that police need to fight crime.

"If the police are looking to ferret out crime, they are responding to
a particular need to try to protect the public," Bair said in an
interview. "The Fourth Amendment does not require you have probable
cause to knock on someone's door."

Bair also said that a person has the right to say no when an officer
asks to search a property without a warrant.

"The person is always free to ignore the knock," he
said.

Officials say police departments across the country have used the
procedure for decades.

Although the practice has never been tested in Maryland's appellate
courts, knock and talks have been the subject of court battles in
other states. Rulings in those cases have varied.

Bill Toohey, a spokesman for the county Police Department, said the
department uses knock and talks "under very specific circumstances" to
"develop information."

The department is "assessing" the procedure, Toohey
said.

Forster and Bair said they are not aware of any police department in
Maryland other than Baltimore County that uses the procedure.

"But you can bet if I lose in the Court of Appeals it will be a
widespread practice," Forster said, adding that the case could end up
being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"If the court says it is not an invasion privacy just to knock on
someone's door, what is to keep [police] from going up and down a row
of row homes in Baltimore City?" she asked. "Should those people be
subjected to having the police bang on their door at midnight?"