OUTCRY WATERS DOWN NO-KNOCK MEASURE

April 4 - State legislators have decided not to make it so tough for police
to get no-knock search warrants.

Sen. Jim Congrove, R-Arvada, had proposed jacking up the legal standard
that officers had to meet to get the warrants. That drew howls of protest
from the state's prosecutors. On Monday, Congrove backed off.

Congrove, a former undercover narcotics officer, said he didn't want good
cases being thrown out on technicalities because of questions about a legal
standard.

"It makes it difficult to use that tool," Congrove said.

In watering down his bill, Congrove won support from prosecutors, police
and Gov. Bill Owens for the measure. The bill's main focus now is to order
police to get prosecutors' approval before obtaining a no-knock warrant.
"It protects both law enforcement and the citizenry," said Owens, who took
the unusual step of holding a news conference to announce his support for
SB 208.

Congrove's legislation has drawn intense interest because it was introduced
in the aftermath of a botched no-knock raid by Denver police that left
Mexican national Ismael Mena dead. Police have admitted they went to the
wrong house. Mena was shot and killed by SWAT officers who said he drew a
gun on them.

Denver police said the legislation probably would not have prevented the
Mena tragedy, though the department supports the bill. The department's
lobbyist noted that Denver police already consult with prosecutors before
seeking a no-knock warrant.

"We already do what this law is going to mandate," Denver police Sgt. Tony
Lombard told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

The panel passed the bill on a unanimous vote Monday; it now goes to the
full Senate.

Instead of raising the legal standard for a no-knock search warrant to
"clear and convincing" evidence, Congrove's bill would commission a state
study to set model standards for no-knock raids.

The standard for search warrants is "probable cause." To get a no-knock
warrant, police are supposed to prove that if they knock, evidence will be
destroyed or officers could be in danger.

But in the wake of the Mena shooting, critics have warned that Denver's
no-knock warrant process is littered with oversights and omissions that
could lead to a fatal tragedy. A Denver Post review of 162 warrants earlier
this year found that judges rarely denied requests for no-knock warrants
and that police usually found no guns where they said guns would be.

Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant said about 50 to 60 no-knock raids
are carried out his county every year, and about 90 percent of those are in
drug cases.

Sen. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, questioned whether police should use the
extreme step of a no-knock warrant for drug cases as opposed to violent
crimes, such as kidnapping.

"How far are we going to go to go after drugs?" Perlmutter asked. "We're
stepping all over the Constitution for a really questionable goal." Jack
Woehr, an opponent of the "war on drugs," came to the hearing to support
the bill, though he said the current draft simply "re-arranges the deck
chairs on the Titanic."

But Ari Zavaras, Owens' chief of the Colorado Department of Public Safety,
said it is often the "small dealers" of narcotics who cause the most misery
for neighborhoods.

"It's really that little dealer who affects the quality of life even more,
sometimes, than the big dealer," Zavaras said.