Supreme Court Ruling in Kentucky versus King

In the 2011 case Kentucky v. King, police agents were the plaintiffs, and the defendant was a purported drug dealer. A suspected drug dealer was dragged by Kentucky police officers to a specific housing complex. The police then announced their plan to knock on the door forcefully after smelling bhang outside the apartment gate. (Bumgarner, 2016). The police officers could hear noise emanating from inside the house as they knocked and waited for someone to answer the door. They hypothesized that the noises had to do with the destruction of evidence. (George & Watkins, 2013). Due to this speculations, the police officers announced their warning to kick down the door if the owners fail the open. After a while, the officers kicked down the door and found the respondent as well as other individuals inside the apartment. The officers saw drugs in an exposed view during the protective sweep of the house, and in their next searches, they found an additional evidence. Since the evidence of the presence of drugs was there, the police officers arrested the respondent and carried the drugs which enabled them to file a case.

Procedural History

The defendant filed a suit in the United States circuit law court. Then, the US circuit law court rejected a motion by the plaintiff to destroy the evidence, stating that exigent situations, as well as the need to prevent proof suppression, justified the warrantless admission (Miller, 2012). The appellant then added an extra plea of guilty, keeping his right to petition the ruling of destruction. The petition law courts of Kentucky asserted the decision before being overturned by the supreme court of the same location (Miller, 2012).

Issues

In making its ruling, the supreme law court founded its arguments on the requirements of the fourth amendment. The modifications state that the rule of exigent situations applies when the police officers do not create the necessity via involvement or intimidating to engage in a conduct irreverent to the fourth modification (Bumgarner, 2016). The fourth amendment enacts two needs. The first requirement is that searches and seizures must be realistic and suitable for all individuals regardless of the situation of the scene. The second need stated by the fourth amendment is that a warrant can only be given upon correct establishment of a possible cause and the mode of the sanctioned search evidently created by accuracy (Bumgarner, 2016). Then, as much as searches and attacks inside individual’s apartments without a permit are regarded to be unrealistic, the supposition may be disregarded if the exigencies of the scenario force law execution agencies to declare the hunt objectively realistic by the requirements of the fourth declaration. An example of such exigency is the notion of stopping the impending damage of evidence (Bumgarner, 2016). Warrantless police hunts are allowed when the situations of the scene makes it realistic as required for in the fourth amendment of the US law.

As much as the law court assumed that the presence of exigent situations, it nevertheless canceled the search. The court stated that the rule of crucial scenarios did not apply the police would have informed that their action should make the residents of the house try to damage the evidence (Miller, 2012). The same fourth amendment issues law execution agents the permission to snatch any evidence in plain view as long as they have not gone against the requirements of the fourth amendment when reaching the scene where the view of the evidence is witnessed. Also, the police officers may be in a position to look for Accord-based findings when their presence in the region of the consensual meeting is permitted by the law (Miller, 2012).

Holdings

The US Supreme Court had the suggestion that the basic rule scenarios were used when the police officers failed to make the demand via involving in a situation which debased the fourth amendment. Additionally, the law court also stated that supposing that an exigency was present in the case, there was no evidence to show that the police officers intimidated infringe or dishonored the requirements of the fourth declaration before they arrived at the home (Miller, 2012). The court then suggested and overturned the case for further proceedings (Miller, 2012).

In the ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed that the police entry into the apartment was incorrect. The court stated that the police officers were not in hunt of escaping suspect when they made their entrance into the home since there was no indication that the respondent was aware that the security personnel was present (Miller, 2012). The Supreme Court ruled the case in contrary to the decision by Kentucky court of appeals on the same case. The court of appeal had earlier ruled that the agency situations which supported the permission to enter and search the apartment were not of the police invention hence the officers did not involve themselves in intentional behavior to avoid the permission requirements (Miller, 2012). The ruling of Supreme Court of the United States of America is final and cannot be overturned by any other body. Then, the case was suspended for additional proceedings.

References

Bumgarner, J. B. (2016). Profiling and criminal justice in America: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.

George, D. R., & Watkins, J. M. (2013). Select Supreme Court decisions. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Miller, W. R. (2012). The social history of crime and punishment in America: An encyclopedia. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.