SEARCH RULES REMAIN IN PLACE, BUT THEY NO LONGER HAVE TEETH

In general, the police are still supposed to knock and identify
themselves before entering homes and brandishing guns. But if they
don't, whatever evidence they find, they may use anyway. So said the
court of last resort, in a 5-4 decision handed down Thursday.

It was a bad ruling, one that diminishes the sanctity of the home in
order to expand the state's power to intrude on the privacy of its
citizens. Anyone who calls that "conservative" is simply out of touch
with reality. It's un-American, too. But we're stuck with it, and
should therefore understand it.

Why should anyone who isn't a drug-dealing, gun-toting baddie like
the appellant in this case care? Because officers get lots of
unreliable tips. Because some magistrates dispense warrants with the
same discretion as Santa tossing candy in the Christmas parade.
Because officers can get the wrong house - as has happened in this
community. Because you might be in the house and, though not a
resident and not named in the warrant, take a bullet if you make a
sudden move, also something that has happened here. Because you might
be killed trying to protect your home from unidentified intruders, or
die because, thinking the intruders might be lawmen, you don't protect it.

No-knock searches are supposed to be the exception. This decision
practically invites law enforcement to make them the rule. That's not
supposition. Four of the five justices in the majority - Alito,
Roberts, Scalia and Thomas - tried to do away with the
knock-and-announce rule. They had to settle for admitting unlawfully
obtained evidence because the fifth justice, Anthony Kennedy, balked.

"It is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the
sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry,"
Kennedy wrote as he voted to strip the deterrent from those "requisites."

Kennedy offered reassurance that victims of police officers who don't
behave "competently and lawfully" can sue. They can - if they're still alive.

Still, it was Kennedy who provided the one useful bit of guidance,
noting that legislatures can address abuses. That should now become
the focal point of every discussion of this ruling. The best
deterrent to abuse is to provide criminal penalties, penalties
comparable to those awaiting other housebreakers, for sloppy,
overbearing, bully-boy police work that victimizes innocents. Do
that, and we may yet salvage the principle that no-knock searches
should be rare and right.