COURT THROWS OUT 1.5 POUNDS OF CRACK COCAINE EVIDENCE, SAYING POLICE
ILLEGALLY ENTERED HOME

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The government cannot proceed with drug charges
against a Hayward man believed to be a member of an Oakland-based drug
cartel because authorities illegally entered his apartment and seized
1.5 pounds of crack cocaine, a federal appeals panel ruled Monday.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that
federal prosecutors cannot use the drugs as evidence they found in
Emmitt Granville's apartment on B Street.

Granville was one of a dozen indicted on federal drug charges in 1994.
Prosecutors said the defendants were members of the so-called "Lacy
organization" which was believed to be selling large quantities of
narcotics throughout the Bay Area.

The panel said a team of law enforcement officials who stormed his
house violated the so-called "knock-and-announce" rule. The federal
statute generally requires that a warrant-armed officer seeking to
enter a house be refused entry before forcibly storming a residence.

In Granville's case, authorities said they knocked and waited five
seconds before storming the door at 7 a.m.

"The five seconds ... simply did not provide Granville with a
reasonable opportunity to ascertain who was at the door," Judge Procter
Hug Jr. wrote. "This is especially apparent in light of the fact that
the warrant was executed early in the morning when it was likely the
occupants of the B Street apartment would be asleep."

Authorities said Granville shot and wounded two officers during the
melee. Granville claimed that he thought somebody was burglarizing his
home.

Granville has pleaded guilty to attempted murder charges, but his
attorney said he now can withdraw the plea and go to trial on those
allegations.

"Obviously, now the government would be going ahead with those charges
as they existed before the plea," said Granville's attorney, Arthur
Pirelli of San Francisco.

Prosecutors declined comment.

Pirelli declined to address his defense strategy in light of the
panel's ruling that police illegally entered the B Street apartment.

Hug wrote that authorities do not always need to follow the
knock-and-announce rule. That is so when they have a reasonable
suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence would be
dangerous or futile, or if it would inhibit the effective
investigation of the crime.

In this case, however, the government argued that authorities had no
prior information that Granville posed a threat to the officers. The
government, Hug wrote, relied on generalizations and stereotypes of
drug dealers.