Court Opinion

ID: 9799262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 06:56:51.297384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:53.861663
License: Public Domain

SANDSTROM, Justice,
dissenting.
[f 24] I believe our Court has gotten off track in equating nighttime search warrants with no-knock search warrants in drug cases.
[¶ 25] In State v. Fields, 2005 ND 15, ¶ 10, 691 N.W.2d 233, we said, “To the extent our prior decisions approved a per-se rule justifying the issuance of nighttime warrants in drug cases, they are overruled. See [State v.] Herrick, 1997 ND 155, ¶ 21, 567 N.W.2d 336 (overruling per-se rule allowing no-knock warrants in drug cases).”
[¶ 26] The United States Supreme Court has set up stringent Fourth Amendment requirements for no-knock search warrants. For “a ‘no-knock’ entry, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence.” Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997); see also United States v. Gay, 240 F.3d 1222 (10th Cir.2001). No blanket exception to the knock-and-announce requirement is permitted even for drug investigations. Richards, 520 U.S. at 388, 117 S.Ct. 1416.
[¶ 27] In contrast, the United States Supreme Court has said that magistrate approval of a nighttime search warrant in a drug case “requires no special showing for a night-time search, other than a showing that the contraband is likely to be on the property or person to be searched at that time.” Gooding v. United States, 416 U.S. 430, 458, 94 S.Ct. 1780, 40 L.Ed.2d 250 (1974). In that case, the Court ad*15dressed a specific federal statute for drug cases and refused to give it a more restrictive requirement of other special circumstances.
[¶ 28] As outlined by the United States Supreme Court decisions, equating nighttime searches with no-knock searches, as we did in Fields, is misplaced. What we have done by opinion we can undo by opinion. And I would do so.
[¶ 29] We previously said, “ ‘The purpose of Rule 41(c), N.D.R.Crim.P., is to protect citizens from being subjected to the trauma of unwarranted nighttime searches. Courts have long recognized that nighttime searches constitute greater intrusions on privacy than do daytime searches.’ ” Fields, 2005 ND 15, ¶ 9, 691 N.W.2d 283 (quoting State v. Schmeets, 278 N.W.2d 401, 410 (N.D.1979)). This no longer makes sense, particularly for drug searches. Past stereotypes do not reflect present reality. We are no longer a sleepy village where television goes off the air at 11 or 12, and every business is shut down during the night. Today people work around the clock. The drug culture appears to be particularly alive at night.
[¶ 30] In this case, the subjects were wide awake at nighttime. When the controlled drug buy took place during the nighttime, there was no rational reason that execution of the warrant should have been delayed beyond the nighttime.
[¶ 31] I would affirm.
[¶ 32] DALE V. SANDSTROM