The Court, apparently, agreed earlier that knocking was required; this decision did not address that issue. It only addressed the issue of enforcement if knocking did not occur.
If you look at is straight on and go no further. But what are the implications of that? If you take away the penalty for not knocking, is the net effect of that not identical to that of removing the requirement to knock?
Say you were a policy maker and you're reviewing a rule that says applicants must "call and make an appointment." You think about that and realize that calling really isn't a necessary requirement. Your IT guys are working on an on-line scheduling feature, which would obviate the need for a phone call. And there's no reason why people can't make appointments in person or by fax. What is important here is that an appointment is scheduled in advance. So you change the rule to remove the "call," which adds no value to the rule.
[For the benefit of anyone who is interested in systems stuff, this is a common problem. The requirement is that an appointment be made. How that happens, the call, in this case. Is a design feature, not a requirement. The failure to differentiate between requirements and design is one of the most elemental and biggest problems with systems. Folks start thinking of design features as requirements and get stuck in the box. FWIW]
So, if you think of it as changing the requirements for a legal search rather than changing the exclusionary rule, you have a different reaction to it. Then you have only to consider whether or not the knock is design or requirement. If it's just a useless design feature, then good riddance. If it's requirement, then we have a problem. Although not a problem with the exclusionary rule. |
