United States v. Lashawn Lowell Banks (540 U.S. 31)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 2, 2003 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 540 U.S. 31 · 124 S. Ct. 521
- Decided
- December 2, 2003
- Term
- October Term 2003
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. Officers executing a warrant to search for cocaine in respondent Banks’s apartment knocked and announced their authority. The question is whether their 15-to-20-second wait before a forcible entry satisfied the Fourth Amendment and 18 U. S. C. §3109. We hold that it did. I With information that Banks was selling cocaine at home, North Las Vegas Police Department officers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents got a warrant to search his two-bedroom apartment. As soon as they arrived there, about 2 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, officers posted in front called out “police search warrant” and rapped hard enough on the door to be heard by officers at the back door. Brief for United States 3 (internal quotation marks omitted). There was no indication whether anyone was home, and after waiting for 15 to 20 seconds with no answer, the officers broke open the front door with a battering ram. Banks was in the shower and testified that he heard nothing until the crash of the door, which brought him out dripping to confront the police. The search produced weapons, crack cocaine, and other evidence of drug dealing. In response to drug and firearms charges, Banks moved to suppress evidence, arguing that the officers executing the search warrant waited an unreasonably short time before forcing entry, and so violated both the Fourth…
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