Radley Balko, a Cato policy analyst and author of the upcoming Cato White Paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Drug Raids in America," says: "The Supreme Court's decision today in the case of Hudson v. Michigan is regrettable. The rise of paramilitary-type police units conducting 'no-knock' raids on American citizens is a disturbing trend in domestic law enforcement. Police excess, procedural errors, and reliance on 'confidential informants' of dubious character have caused hundreds of violent raids to be waged on completely innocent civilians. Dozens of nonviolent offenders, bystanders, and innocents have been killed or injured as a result. Because the courts have set the bar extremely high in allowing victims of botched raids to sue police officers and their superiors, the only real defense left against wholesale disregard for the rule requiring police to 'knock and announce' before entering private residences was to exclude evidence seized in illegal raids. Today, the Supreme Court removed that defense.
"Because of today's decision we can expect to see an even more pronounced increase in the use of illegal, military-style no-knock raids. And we can expect to see more innocent civilians wrongly targeted."
In "No SWAT," Balko writes that 'no-knock' raids are "often launched on tips from notoriously unreliable confidential informants. Rubber-stamp judges, dicey informants, and aggressive policing have thus given rise to the countless examples of 'wrong door' raids we read about in the news. In fact, there's a disturbingly long list of completely innocent people who've been killed in 'wrong door' raids. It's impossible to estimate just how many wrong-door raids occur. Police and prosecutors are notoriously inept at keeping track of their own mistakes, and victims of botched raids are often too terrified or fearful of retribution to come forward."
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