Court Opinion

ID: 9654489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:23:11.927409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:09.910955
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
¶ 38. {concurring). Although I concur with the mandate, I respectfully disagree with the majority's standard regarding the issue of when the police may forego the rule of announcement in drug dealing cases.
¶ 39. The foundation for government action under the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures,. .. ." U.S. Const, amend. IV.). In determining a reasonable standard with respect to the question of *756when the police must abide by the rule of announcement, the underlying question should be this: if you were a police officer, would you be the first one through the door after knocking, announcing, and awaiting a response?
¶ 40. To place this issue in context, it is important to note the requirements of the rule of announcement, referred to as "knock and announce."1 The rule of announcement "requires police officers to do three things before forcibly entering a home to execute a search warrant: 1) announce their identity; 2) announce their purpose; and 3) wait for either the occupants to refuse their admittance or, in the absence of an express refusal, allow the occupants time to open the door." State vs. Stevens, 181 Wis. 2d 410, 423, 511 N.W.2d 591 (1994). Federal courts have similar requirements. See, e.g., U.S. v. Markling, 7 F.3d 1309, 1318 (7th Cir. 1993); U.S. v. Leichtnam, 948 F.2d 370, 374 (7th Cir. 1991); U.S. v. Moore, 91 F.3d 96, 98 (10th Cir. 1996); U.S. v. Knapp, 1 F.3d 1026, 1031 (10th Cir. 1993).
¶ 41. The majority states that, absent "particularized facts" about the particular case, the police must abide by the rule of announcement before executing the search warrant for evidence of drug dealing. The problem with the majority rule is not that it requires particularized facts to dispense with the rule of announcement. The problem is it demands too many "particularized facts." Because the majority demands too much, I respectfully disagree.
¶ 42. The majority requires police to knock, announce, and await a response when executing a *757search warrant for evidence of drug dealing even when all of the following conditions are present: 1) reasonable grounds to believe that drugs are being sold on the premises, concurred in by a neutral magistrate who issued the search warrant; 2) a belief based upon past experience and/or training that knocking, announcing, and awaiting a response poses a very dangerous sitúation to the officers; 3) knowledge based upon past experience and/or training that the evidence inside the house might be destroyed; and, 4) nothing in the particular case to negate their beliefs that knocking, announcing, and awaiting a response poses a serious danger to them and/or potential destruction of evidence.
¶ 43. The majority says the police must have more; without more "particularized" knowledge about the particular dangerousness of this particular situation, the police must first knock, announce, and await a response before entering the premises. I disagree. I conclude that when all of the above conditions are met, the police are not required to comply with the rule of announcement.
¶ 44. The serious, in fact deadly danger potentially awaiting the police in these circumstances can scarcely be understated. The United States Solicitor General's Office filed an amicus brief in Richards v. Wisconsin, 117 S.Ct. 1416 (1997), reciting what is now the universally recognized tie between drugs and firearms.
Indeed, the courts have frequently recognized that there is a well-established association between guns and drugs; firearms are 'tools of the [narcotics] trade.' United States v. Bonner, 874 F.2d 822, 824 (D.C. Cir. 1989). And the guns that drug traffickers prefer are often machine guns and other heavy *758weaponry that pose the greatest danger to police officers and bystanders. See, e.g., United States v. Kirk, No. 94-50472, 1997 WL 40602 [105 F.3d 997, 1002-03 n.1], at *9 n.1 (5th Cir. Feb. 3, 1997) (en banc) (opinion of Higginbotham, J.) (citing 29 recent federal appellate cases).
Once an officer has announced his intention to enter a home to execute a search for contraband or to make an arrest, the drug trafficker has a heightened incentive to prevent the officer from attaining those goals. See Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Drugs, Crime, and the Justice System: A National Report, 5 (Dec. 1992) ('To avoid being arrested and punished for trafficking, drug dealers commit violent crimes against police and threaten informants or witnesses.'). Accordingly, 'the law has uniformly recognized that substantial dealers in narcotics possess firearms' and that 'entrance into a situs of drug trafficking activity carries all too real dangers to law enforcement officers.' United States v. Kennedy, 32 F.3d 876, 882-883 (4th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted; citing cases), cert. denied, 115 S.Ct. 939 (1995).
Amicus Curiae Brief for the United States Solicitor General's office at 13-15 (footnote omitted), Richards, 117 S.Ct. at 1416.2
¶ 45. I do not believe the standard set by the majority is what the U.S. Supreme Court demands under Richards. See 117 S.Ct. at 1421-22.1 agree with the state that under Richards the police may dispense *759with the rule of announcement when executing a search warrant involving drug dealing when there is no specific evidence that would negate an officer's reasonable suspicion of danger to themselves or destruction of evidence, based on the officer's training and experience. This was also the position taken by the Solicitor General of the United States in Richards. I conclude that the U.S. Supreme Court in Richards adopted the position of the Solicitor General.
¶ 46. There is no question that a particularity requirement must be met to satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard. However, as the state points out, courts have not demanded the same kind of specific information that is needed to satisfy the probable cause standard. In reasonable suspicion cases, the police and courts can rely on their training and experience in similar situations to satisfy the particularity requirement. See, e.g., Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U.S. 1, 6 (1984); United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418 (1981); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 565-66 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring); United States v. Buenaventura-Ariza, 615 F.2d 29, 36 (2nd Cir. 1980).
¶ 47. The Court's reasoning in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 6-7 (1968), cited by the majority, is illustrative with respect to the particularity requirement. The Court said that frisking a suspect for weapons on reasonable suspicion is allowed
where [the officer] has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime. The officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in *760danger. And in determining whether the officer acted reasonably in such circumstances, due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and unparticu-larized suspicion of 'hunch,' but to the specific reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his experience.
Terry, 392 U.S. at 27 (citations and footnote omitted).
¶ 48. Do the police in drug dealing cases have "reason to believe" that they are dealing with armed and dangerous individuals? In the absence of evidence negating their belief, police have every reason to believe based on the overwhelming documentation that this situation is fraught with danger.
¶ 49. Are the police in drug dealing cases "warranted in the belief that (their) safety or that of others [may be] in danger?" In the absence of evidence negating their belief, it is difficult to see how that question can be answered in anyway but the affirmative.
¶ 50. The state in its brief in this case makes a particularly telling argument in its summation of the significance of Terry to the issue before us:
In Terry, the officer's reasonable suspicion that the suspects were armed was based on the nature of the crime that he suspected they were about to commit. He had no other specific information about the suspects that indicated they were armed or dangerous. In finding that the information known to Officer McFadden warranted his belief that the suspect was armed and thus presented a threat to the officer's safety, the Court said in Terry, 392 U.S. at 28:
We think on the facts and circumstances Officer McFad.den detailed before the trial judge a reasonably prudent man would *761have been warranted in believing petitioner was armed and thus presented a threat to the officer's safety while he was investigating his suspicious behavior. The actions of Terry and Chilton were consistent with McFadden's hypothesis that these men were contemplating a daylight robbery — which, it is reasonable to assume, would be likely to involve the use of weapons — and nothing in their conduct from the time he first noticed them until the time he confronted them and identified himself as a police officer gave him sufficient reason to negate that hypothesis.
The Court's comments are significant in at least three respects. First, the Court made it clear that it was reasonable for Officer McFadden to conclude that the suspect was armed and dangerous based on the reasonable suspicion to believe that he was armed. In other words, once there was reasonable suspicion to believe the suspect was armed, the officer could conclude that the suspect was dangerous. Second, the Court relied only on the nature of the crime of which Terry was suspected of planning in assuming that a weapon would be involved. The Court cites no other information specific to Terry except the nature of the crime as a basis for reasonably suspecting that he was armed. Third, Officer McFadden could assume that Terry was armed based on the nature of the crime when no other information negated that hypothesis. Thus, where no information otherwise negates the hypothesis, the officer can rely on his experience and the nature of the suspected crime to conclude that the suspect is armed.
Brief of State of Wisconsin at 32-33, Meyer, No. 96-2243-CR.
*762¶ 51. The state in its brief goes on to explain that in Richards the Supreme Court adopted the arguments made by the Solicitor General that the police are entitled to rely on their experience and training in the absence of information that negates the threat of danger or destruction of evidence.
During the argument, one justice asked the Wisconsin Attorney General why the blanket rule was necessary when in most cases the police could justify the no knock entry with 'virtually no trouble.' 1997 WL 143822 at 28 (hereafter the oral argument transcript will be cited as T: — ). The justice indicated that the state could probably always justify the no knock entry in drug cases except in the rare case where the informant said there were no guns or the marijuana was stored in bales in the barn so there was no risk of destruction (T:28). When the Attorney General said the justice was stating the position of the Solicitor General (the United States), there was no dispute from the court (T:30).
When the Court issued its opinion, it appeared to again take the position of the United States because it said several times that felony drug investigations may frequently involve both danger and the threat of destruction of evidence. Richards, 117 S.Ct. at 1420, and 1421 (twice). In addition, after explaining that the standard was reasonable suspicion, the Court said that the 'showing is not high.' Richards, 117 S.Ct. at 1422. By recognizing that felony drug investigations frequently involve danger and the threat of destruction of evidence and by recognizing that the showing the state must make is not high, the Court took the same position as the justice at oral argument and as the United States in its brief.
The Brief of the United States took the same position that the Supreme Court took in Terry, 392 U.S. *763at 28, which is that police experience can provide reasonable suspicion when there are no particular actions or information from the suspect to negate the suspicion. In rejecting the blanket rule the Supreme Court again approved the United States' argument because the reasons the Court gave for the blanket rule being overgeneralized were essentially the same as the reasons the United States gave for the officers' general experience being negated: the dangerous drug dealer might not be present when the police come and the police may have information showing that the evidence cannot be destroyed. Richards, 117 S.Ct. at 1421.
Therefore, in light of the cases that have considered stop and frisk situations, in light of the cases cited in the Brief of the United States and in light of the response of the United States Supreme Court to the arguments of the Solicitor General both during oral argument and in the opinion, it is proper for the police to rely on experience in similar cases to infer that danger or threat of the destruction of evidence is present in a specific case. The police are entitled to rely on that experience in absence of information that negates it. This approach to no knock cases differs from the blanket rule because it is based on experience in similar cases and on the nature of the crime; and it acknowledges that the no knock entry is improper when the police possess the negating information. This approach is the one the Untied States took in Richards v. Wisconsin, which was apparently approved by the United States Supreme Court.
Brief of the State of Wisconsin at 43-45, State v. Meyer, No. 96-2243-CR. .
¶ 52. The rule announced today by the majority is deeply troubling. Because it is so unworkable in the reality of the street, the consequences are potentially *764devastating. It may, at worst, result in serious injury if not death to police officers attempting to conform with the majority's mandate. It might result in less, not more, drug enforcement due to refusal of the police to secure or execute search warrants when they do not have the "particularized knowledge of exigent circumstances" demanded by the majority because of the danger presented to them when required to knock,, announce, and await a response.
¶ 53. To end as I began, assume you are a police officer standing outside the door with 1) a reasonable belief, concurred in by a neutral magistrate, that evidence of drug dealing is present; and, 2) a belief based on your experience and training that when you enter that door you are faced with a situation fraught with potential serious danger to yourself and the other police present; and, 3) nothing in the circumstances of this case negates that belief; and, 4) based on the majority's rule, you knock, announce your presence, identity, and purpose, and await a response. Would you be the first one through the door?
¶ 54. Not!
¶ 55. I am authorized to state that Justices Donald W. Steinmetz and Jon P. Wilcox join in this opinion.

 Given that there are actually three requirements, it should more accurately be termed the rule of "knock, announce, and await a response."

 The United States also cited a series of cases supporting a police officer's reasonable suspicion that the occupants would attempt to throw away or destroy the evidence. See Amicus Curiae Brief for the United States Solicitor General's office at 19-20 n.9, Richards v. Wisconsin, 117 S.Ct. 1416 (1997).