POLICE GET BROADER LEEWAY IN SEARCHES

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police with search warrants do not need extra
justification to enter a home without knocking first even if the entry
results in property damage, the Supreme Court ruled today.

The unanimous ruling allows prosecutors to use as evidence weapons seized
from an Oregon man's home after police broke a window while making a
no-knock entry.

The high court previously has ruled that police with search warrants can
enter someone's home without knocking if they have a ``reasonable
suspicion'' that knocking and announcing themselves would be dangerous or
harm the investigation.

``Whether such a reasonable suspicion exists depends in no way on whether
police must destroy property in order to enter,'' Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist wrote for the court.

However, Rehnquist said such entries still are governed by the
Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

``Excessive or unnecessary destruction of property in the course of a
search may violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the entry itself is
lawful,'' the chief justice wrote.

But the court upheld the 1994 search of Hernan Ramirez's home in Boring, Ore.

Police came to his home on a tip that an escaped inmate may have been
there. Officials said the inmate struck a guard, stole a vehicle and
threatened to kill police officers and others.

The 45 officers arrived early in the morning and announced over a
loudspeaker that they had a search warrant. Without waiting for a response,
one officer broke a garage window and began waving a gun through the window.

Ramirez said he and his wife thought they were being burglarized. He got a
gun and fired it into the ceiling, but surrendered when he realized the
window was broken by police.

The escaped inmate was not found, but police got a new search warrant and
seized two guns. Ramirez was charged with possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon.

A federal judge ruled the search unlawful, saying officers' knowledge of
the escaped inmate's violent past justified entering Ramirez's home without
knocking, but only if they could do it without damaging his property.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, but the Supreme
Court disagreed.

The police officers' conduct in breaking into Ramirez's home was ``clearly
reasonable,'' the chief justice said.

``The police here broke a single window in (Ramirez's) garage'' because
they wanted to keep the house's occupants from grabbing weapons that an
informant had said were inside, Rehnquist wrote.

The case is U.S. vs. Ramirez, 96-1469.