Posted 5/17/2011 10:16:00 PM by Douglas

It's not often, ok, ever, that I find myself agreeing with Ruth "the badger" Ginsburg as the lone stalwart of The Supremes, but dang if this isn't a head scratcher.

Ruling in a Kentucky case Monday, the justices said that officers who smell marijuana and loudly knock on the door may break in if they hear sounds that suggest the residents are scurrying to hide the drugs.

The Kentucky case began when police in Lexington sought to arrest a man who had sold crack cocaine to an informer. They followed the man to an apartment building, but lost contact with him. They smelled marijuana coming from one apartment. Though it turned out not to be the apartment of their suspect, they pounded on the door, called, "Police," and heard people moving inside.

At this, the officers announced they were coming in and broke down the door. Instead of the original suspect, they found Hollis King smoking marijuana and arrested him. They also found powder cocaine. King was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

So knock down the wrong door, totally surprise someone doing something illegal, and because you did it unknowingly and, as Alito says, because the "exigency wasn't created," it's now legal. Here's the whole opinion. I'm glad Ginsburg quoted this part from a ruling in 1947:

"The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is . . . a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is,as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not a policeman . . ."If the officers in this case were excused from the constitutional duty of presenting their evidence to a magistrate, it is difficult to think of [any] case in which [a warrant] should be required."

Thanks a lot, 1947. You gave them too many ideas.