Saturday, June 11, 2011

A Sensible Ruling By The Georgia Supreme Court

But we have that feeling in our gut that it won't withstand a federal court's scrutiny.

Read here

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to have to voice an opinion against the Georgia Supreme Court on this one.

First of all, I support the death penalty for any murderist, rapist, fire lane park...ist and especially: A Cop killer.

However, A no knock warrant is inherrently a dangerous task.

I'll tell you right now, if I was a drug dealer (or even if law enforcement decided to execute a no knock warrant on my home at this moment as I am typing) - and the door flew open with men leap frogging in ... while I am completley unadvised and unsure of what is going on ...


There would be an unfortunate unfolding of events that would involve a narrative stating the reason why some of my brothers will not be going home to their nagging wives and ungreatful children tonight.

I respect the actual ruling of the supreme court. but not for this.

If these men had no idea the people invading their home were police officers - and this law promotes the death penalty against people who kill police officers, it is in my opinion: unethical, immoral and unjust to hand the death penalty over to these men.

Their state of mindset of been to defend themselves.

Another reason why i don't like these no knock warrants.

If these officers identified themselves before breaching the door then this would be a whole diffrent situation.

I have not read about this incident so that may very well be what happend... if so correct me if i'm wrong but in this context - if things went down the way i'm assuming they did; these men should not be bound to the death penalty BY THIS LAW... if a jury finds them guilty and opts for the death penalty thats fine,

but this law seems like a load of crap to use against men who had no idea wether what they were shooting at was a random 69 perp or a law enforcement officer.

once that door flies open and weapons are seen - no sane man would care if someone identified themselves as police or not. not in those seconds.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who has studied this case knows that the shooter hid behind a door and ambushed the officer....who was wearing his badge around his neck and who had yelled police several time. He ambushed him and blew the back of his head off.
They knew the cops were there, there were 8 officers, most of whom were wearing tactical vests and yelling police.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:53AM

You've obviously never been on a no-knock search warrant, so maybe you should keep your uninformed and grammatically confusing comments to yourself.

You say a lot of "if this, if that, if this" which shows you don't really know, you're just guessing.

Do you really think the officers breaching the door don't announce that they are cops? Do you really think they want to leave the PERPS guessing about who they are? Do you really think PERPS are thinking, "The ONLY people who would knock down my door would be a robbing crew! No way it could be the police!" They know damn well the cops could come barging in at anytime.

Anonymous said...

So the officers identified themselves before executing the warrant then?

and the perp. ambushed the officers? while they came in identifying themselves as police with badges worn around their necks?

If so then I apologize - that totally changes the circumstance.

Anonymous said...

Would love to see this become a main topic.

Citizens attend police academy:

http://www.championnewspaper.com/news/articles/967dekalb-residents-attend-police-academy-967.html

As a citizen, I'll pose this scenario:

You're invited to speak in front of this group of 40 some-odd citizens who are interested in the way DKPD works.

1)What is the one thing you want citizens to know about your job?
2)What is the one thing (resource or equipment) you wish you and your team had available?
3)What is the one message you want citizens to deliver to the BOC and CEO on your behalf?

The only rule: You can be honest, but be constructive!

Let's start a good conversation so citizens can listen, learn and take action on our behalf!

Anonymous said...

If you murder anyone, LEO or civilian, you should get the needle. End. Of. Story.
No-knock warrants are a double edged sword. The idea behind a no knock warrant is that identifying yourself to certain suspects will create a standoff or fleeing situation, so in order to avoid those circumstances, a no knock warrant is issued and the hope is that the suspects can be contained before they have a chance to react violently or flee. The circumstances and constitutionality of such warrants have been debated for years. Then again so has everything else in our system.
When you bring up self-defense and defense of habitation in a case such as this, remember that you are not dealing with an everyday citizen. You are dealing with someone that you likely know is disposed towards violence or a flight risk. No knock warrants are usually only issued under extreme circumstances, when identifying yourself may create an even more dangerous situation.
Most ordinary people will never have the experience of a no knock warrant, and mind you that someone who is in the comission of a crime or wanted for a felony is not an ordinary person.

Anonymous said...

To the first poster, no knocks have their place in our business. The element of suprise can make the difference of going home or not going home. As far as you defending yourself and firing on us as we enter your home, hey I'll hold that one, I (we) knew the dangers of the job when we took it.
God speed my friend.

Anonymous said...

Most of the naysayers on her have no clue what a no knock is and have never executed one....and most have never worked narcotics or organized crime and never will... most on here have never worked SWAT or a tactical unit and never will....and most on here couldn't investigate there way out of a wet paper sack much less author a no knock search warrant after a month long undercover investigation.
Therefore most of the comments will be useless.

These guys were clearly marked as police, were yelling police, and the shooter moved to a perfect ambush location and shot this officer in the back of his head when he rushed into the room.

Anonymous said...

A no knock warrant doesn't mean you pick the person's lock and sneak through their house like a cat burglar. The idea is to announce that you are the police and break in the door so the people inside don't have time to arm themselves and ambush the cops as the make their way through the house. If you have just a regular warrant, you knock on the door and give the people inside a reasonable amount of time to come and open the door. Reasonable people do just that. But when you're going up against the worst of the worst people, with violent tendencies, you don't want to stand at the front door for 5 minutes waiting for them to come and open it. They're not going to. All you have done is given them an opportunity to arm themselves and hide for an ambush. If you're lucky, they're just hiding. But do you want to take that chance?

Anonymous said...

To Anon 1216.
I agree with you but maybe you shold have another drink .

Anonymous said...

Just ask my good friend Detective Lyons (formerly of the APD Nartocis Unit) excuted by a drug dealer (shot in the back of the head) as they excuted a N/k.
When its up its just up no matter how hard you train or who trains you.
We need the electirc sofa not the chair. Drug dealers killing each other are victimless crimes. So why waste so many resources on them.

Anonymous said...

Ok, So, here's this for a situation.

Katherine Johnston survives the raid upon her home and in the process kills one of the officers. How does the view of the posters here change regarding no-knocks?

Given that this decision involves murder and insofar as the charge of murder is not absolutely automatic for the killing of an officer (as in the Johnston case OR a case where officers are raiding the wrong house of an innocent citizen) I'm more or less cool with the issue. Though, I do have some question on why there's a differentiation between cops and everyone else when there is no knowledge of the identity of the victim (whither the equal protection clause?).

That said, I'll argue that no-knocks do have a place. However, nothing is absolute. I am concerned that no-knocks are being overly used. When the Department of Education is using them with a SWAT team, I think most folks will have a hard time saying this particular hammer is not being used to do the wrong job, ie, driving screws.