Criminal Justice - Research Paper Example

cible entry to a premise is protected under the Fourth amendment when the nature of the circumstances that led to the warrant is considered reasonable. On the mentioned case involving Steiney Richards, petitioner v. Wisconsin, Madison, police officers forcibly entered the motel room that was occupied by the petitioner on December 31 early morning in order to execute a search warrant that was intended to net illegal narcotics. Before the search warrant was granted, the magistrate who issued the warrant rejected a no- knock warrant (Karagiozis & Sgaglio 2005).

The magistrate argued that the case submitted did not attain the threshold to justify the need of such a warrant and, therefore, rejected to grant the police officers a no- knock warrant. Despite the magistrate’s judicial ruling, the Madison police officers dismissed the ruling and resorted in using force where they did not disclose the purpose and their presence prior to the entry. The police officers conducted the search and identified illegal narcotics such as cocaine but there was no evidence of gun possession that was collected.

The trial court dismissed all attempts from the petitioner to suppress the case after which the petitioner, Steiney Richards pleaded guilty of the felony charges. The suspect possessed illegal narcotics that comprised of cocaine with intents to deliver thus allowing the appellant court to uphold the conviction of the petitioner to a prison term. To affirm the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme court scrutinized the issues in the case and found that the entry to the petitioner’s motel room did not violate the legislation thereby upholding policies as stipulated in the Fourth Amendment.

In reaffirming their decision, the supreme court, acknowledged that the police officers are invariably allowed to ignore announcing their presence by considering the nature of the search warrant especially those that involves felonious acts like drug trafficking. The petitioner argued that the