Court Opinion

ID: 9513400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:35:18.312593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:51.092361
License: Public Domain

SANDSTROM, Justice,
concurring specially-
[¶ 29] N.D.C.C. § 19-03.1-32(3)provides:
Any officer authorized to execute a search warrant, without notice of the officer’s authority and purpose, may break open an outer or inner door or window of a building, or any part of the building, or anything therein, if the judge or magistrate issuing the warrant has 'probable cause to believe that if such notice were to be given the property sought in the case may be easily and quickly destroyed or disposed of, or that danger to the life or limb of the officer or another may result, and has included in the warrant a direction that the officer executing it is not required to give such notice. Any officers acting under such warrant, as soon as practicable after entering the premises, shall identify themselves and state the purpose of entering the premises and the authority for doing so.
(Emphasis added). The majority, at ¶ 19, acknowledges the magistrate had “probable cause that methamphetamine in an easily disposable form is located in a suspect’s residence.” As the majority notes at ¶4, in applying for the search warrant, Officer Becker testified, “ ‘Methamphetamine could be easily disposed of, pour[ed] down the sink or a toilet.’ ” The magistrate knew the seizure of the drugs would provide evidence of a felony. Given the choice between easily and quickly flushing the drugs down the toilet, or being convicted of a felony, a person in the residence would have a great incentive and ability to dispose of the evidence. In strict conformity with the statute, the “magistrate issuing the warrant ha[d] probable cause to believe that if such notice were to be given the property sought in the case may be easily and quickly destroyed or disposed of.”
[¶ 30] The magistrate was not applying a per se rule in all drug cases as prohibited in Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997), and State v. Herrick, 1997 ND 155, 567 N.W.2d 336. The no-knoek warrant was based on the easy disposability of the particular drugs there was probable cause' to believe were present. Under Rickards, a no-knock entry is justified when “knocking and announcing [police] presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would fehibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence.” Richards, at 1421 (emphasis added).
[¶ 31] I would affirm the validity of the no-knock warrant. The majority opinion creates a standard so high for a no-knock warrant, it exceeds anything required by the United States Supreme Court in Richards and the plain language of our statute, making it excessively difficult for an officer to justify a no-knock entry. Perhaps the legislature will quickly replace “probable cause” in N.D.C.C. § 19-03.1-32(3) with Richards’ lesser “reasonable suspicion” standard, before drug prosecutions and the safety of law enforcement officers are unnecessarily imperiled.
[¶ 32] Dale V. Sandstrom