[1] Amid nationwide protests in response to the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, there were extensive calls to end no-knock warrants.
[2] Critics argue that no-knock warrants were prone to lead to deadly use of force by police and the deaths of innocent people.
[2] They also argue that no-knock warrants conflict with the right to self-defense, "stand-your-ground" laws, and the castle doctrine, which explicitly permit the use of deadly force against intruders.
[10] The 1963 Supreme Court ruling Ker v. California set a precedent in favor of forcible police entries involving drugs out of concern that evidence could be destroyed.
"[1] In Hudson v. Michigan (2006) the Court held by a 5–4 vote that the exclusionary rule does not require the suppression of evidence police seize during an illegal forced entry.
[9] The act of entering someone's home by surprise, often late at night or early in the morning, creates a risk of violence, especially given the prevalence of gun ownership in United States.
[1] Proposals for reform include legislating for a checklist of conditions to be applied for all police search warrants: "with some exceptions, officers should be in uniform; they should do the raid during the day; and they shouldn't rely on out-of-date intelligence about who lives in a targeted home.
[21] Sheriff's Deputy Nikki Autry secured a no-knock warrant after awaking a county magistrate at his home and making inaccurate sworn statements to him.
[9] Police executed a no-knock raid at 2:25 am on May 28, with a SWAT team breaching a door with a ram and throwing a flash-bang stun grenade into a room containing a 19-month-old child.
The grenade exploded inside the infant's playpen, igniting the playpen and his pillow, causing "blast burn injuries to the face and chest; a complex laceration of the nose, upper lip and face; 20% of the right upper lip missing; the external nose being separated from the underlying bone; and a large avulsion burn injury to the chest with a resulting left pulmonary contusion and sepsis".
The legal case argued that children's toys, including a plastic child's pool, were in the yard and the packaging for the playpen the infant was sleeping in was next to the door the police breached.
Although the police had received court approval for a "no-knock" entry, they did knock and announce themselves prior to breaking down the door, according to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.