Warden v. Hayden (1967)

387 U.S. 294 (1967)

Vote: 6-3
Decision:
Majority: Brennan, joined by Clark, Harlan, Stewart, and White
Concurrence: Black
Concurrence: Fortas, joined by Warren
Dissent: Douglas

JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

We review in this case the validity of the proposition that there is under the Fourth Amendment a “distinction between merely evidentiary materials, on the one hand, which may not be seized either under the authority of a search warrant or during the course of a search incident to arrest, and on the other hand, those objects which may validly be seized including the instrumentalities and means by which a crime is committed, the fruits of crime such as stolen property, weapons by which escape of the person arrested might be affected, and property the possession of which is a crime.”

A Maryland court sitting without a jury convicted respondent of armed robbery. Items of his clothing … were seized during a search of his home, and were admitted in evidence without objection. After unsuccessful state court proceedings, he sought and was denied federal habeas corpus relief in the District Court for Maryland. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals believed that Harris v. United States (1947) sustained the validity of the search, but held that respondent was correct in his contention that the clothing seized was improperly admitted in evidence because the items had “evidential value only” and therefore were not lawfully subject to seizure. We granted certiorari. We reverse.

About 8 a.m. on March 17, 1962, an armed robber entered the business premises of the Diamond Cab Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He took some $363 and ran. Two cab drivers in the vicinity, attracted by shouts of “Holdup,” followed the man to 2111 Cocoa Lane. One driver notified the company dispatcher by radio that the man was a Negro about 5’8″ tall, wearing a light cap and dark jacket, and that he had entered the house on Cocoa Lane. The dispatcher relayed the information to police who were proceeding to the scene of the robbery. Within minutes, police arrived at the house in a number of patrol cars. An officer knocked and announced their presence. Mrs. Hayden answered, and the officers told her they believed that a robber had entered the house, and asked to search the house. She offered no objection.

The officers spread out through the first and second floors and the cellar in search of the robber. Hayden was found in an upstairs bedroom feigning sleep. He was arrested when the officers on the first floor and in the cellar reported that no other man was in the house. Meanwhile, an officer was attracted to an adjoining bathroom by the noise of running water, and discovered a shotgun and a pistol in a flush tank; another officer who, according to the District Court, “was searching the cellar for a man or the money” found in a washing machine a jacket and trousers of the type the fleeing man was said to have worn. A clip of ammunition for the pistol and a cap were found under the mattress of Hayden’s bed, and ammunition for the shotgun was found in a bureau drawer in Hayden’s room. All these items of evidence were introduced against the respondent at his trial.

We agree with the Court of Appeals that neither the entry without warrant to search for the robber, nor the search for him without warrant was invalid. Under the circumstances of this case, “the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative.” McDonald v. United States (1948).  The police were informed that an armed robbery had taken place, and that the suspect had entered 2111 Cocoa Lane less than five minutes before they reached it. They acted reasonably when they entered the house and began to search for a man of the description they had been given and for weapons which he had used in the robbery or might use against them. The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of an investigation, if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others. Speed here was essential, and only a thorough search of the house for persons and weapons could have insured that Hayden was the only man present and that the police had control of all weapons which could be used against them or to effect an escape.

. …

It is argued that, while the weapons, ammunition, and cap may have been seized in the course of a search for weapons, the officer who seized the clothing was searching neither for the suspect nor for weapons when he looked into the washing machine in which he found the clothing. But even if we assume, although we do not decide, that the exigent circumstances in this case made lawful a search without warrant only for the suspect or his weapons, it cannot be said on this record that the officer who found the clothes in the washing machine was not searching for weapons. He testified that he was searching for the man or the money, but his failure to state explicitly that he was searching for weapons, in the absence of a specific question to that effect, can hardly be accorded controlling weight. He knew that the robber was armed and he did not know that some weapons had been found at the time he opened the machine. In these circumstances the inference that he was in fact also looking for weapons is fully justified.

We come, then, to the question whether, even though the search was lawful, the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that the seizure and introduction of the items of clothing violated the Fourth Amendment because they are “mere evidence.” The distinction made by some of our cases between seizure of items of evidential value only and seizure of instrumentalities, fruits, or contraband has been criticized by courts and commentators. The Court of Appeals, however, felt “obligated to adhere to it.” We today reject the distinction as based on premises no longer accepted as rules governing the application of the Fourth Amendment.

. …

Nothing in the language of the Fourth Amendment supports the distinction between “mere evidence” and instrumentalities, fruits of crime, or contraband. On its face, the provision assures the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects … ,” without regard to the use to which any of these things are applied. This “right of the people” is certainly unrelated to the “mere evidence” limitation. Privacy is disturbed no more by a search directed to a purely evidentiary object than it is by a search directed to an instrumentality, fruit, or contraband. A magistrate can intervene in both situations, and the requirements of probable cause and specificity can be preserved intact. Moreover, nothing in the nature of property seized as evidence renders it more private than property seized, for example, as an instrumentality; quite the opposite may be true. Indeed, the distinction is wholly irrational, since, depending on the circumstances, the same “papers and effects” may be “mere evidence” in one case and “instrumentality” in another.

In Gouled v. United States (1921), the Court said that search warrants “may not be used as a means of gaining access to a man’s house or office and papers solely for the purpose of making search to secure evidence to be used against him in a criminal or penal proceeding. … ” The Court derived from Boyd v. United States (1886) … the proposition that warrants “may be resorted to only when a primary right to such search and seizure may be found in the interest which the public or the complainant may have in the property to be seized, or in the right to the possession of it, or when a valid exercise of the police power renders possession of the property by the accused unlawful and provides that it may be taken,” that is, when the property is an instrumentality or fruit of crime, or contraband. Since it was “impossible to say, on the record … that the Government had any interest” in the papers involved “other than as evidence against the accused … ,” “to permit them to be used in evidence would be, in effect, as ruled in the Boyd Case, to compel the defendant to become a witness against himself.”

The items of clothing involved in this case are not “testimonial” or “communicative” in nature, and their introduction therefore did not compel respondent to become a witness against himself in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Schmerber v. California (1966).  This case thus does not require that we consider whether there are items of evidential value whose very nature precludes them from being the object of a reasonable search and seizure.

. …

The premise that property interests control the right of the Government to search and seize has been discredited. …

. … The requirements of the Fourth Amendment can secure the same protection of privacy whether the search is for “mere evidence” or for fruits, instrumentalities or contraband. There must, of course, be a nexus — automatically provided in the case of fruits, instrumentalities or contraband — between the item to be seized and criminal behavior. Thus, in the case of “mere evidence,” probable cause must be examined in terms of cause to believe that the evidence sought will aid in a particular apprehension or conviction. In so doing, consideration of police purposes will be required … But no such problem is presented in this case. The clothes found in the washing machine matched the description of those worn by the robber and the police therefore could reasonably believe that the items would aid in the identification of the culprit.

. …

The rationale most frequently suggested for the rule preventing the seizure of evidence is that “limitations upon the fruit to be gathered tend to limit the quest itself.” United States v. Poller (1930). But privacy “would be just as well served by a restriction on search to the even-numbered days of the month. … And it would have the extra advantage of avoiding hair-splitting questions. … ” [Kaplan, Search and Seizure: A No-Man’s Land in the Criminal Law, 49 Calif.L.Rev.]. The “mere evidence” limitation has spawned exceptions so numerous and confusion so great, in fact, that it is questionable whether it affords meaningful protection. But if its rejection does enlarge the area of permissible searches, the intrusions are nevertheless made after fulfilling the probable cause and particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment and after the intervention of “a neutral and detached magistrate. … ” Johnson v. United States (2015). The Fourth Amendment allows intrusions upon privacy under these circumstances, and there is no viable reason to distinguish intrusions to secure “mere evidence” from intrusions to secure fruits, instrumentalities, or contraband.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

Excepted by Makenna Perry

Illinois v. Gates (1983)

462 U.S. 213 (1983)

Vote: 6-3
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell, and O’Connor
Concurrence: White (in judgment)
Dissent: Brennan, joined by Marshall
Dissent: Stevens, joined by Brennan

JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondents Lance and Susan Gates were indicted for violation of state drug laws after police officers, executing a search warrant, discovered marihuana and other contraband in their automobile and home. Prior to trial, the Gateses moved to suppress evidence seized during this search. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of lower state courts granting the motion. It held that the affidavit submitted in support of the State’s application for a warrant to search the Gateses’ property was inadequate under this Court’s decisions in Aguilar v. Texas (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, (1969).

We granted certiorari to consider the application of the Fourth Amendment to a magistrate’s issuance of a search warrant on the basis of a partially corroborated anonymous informant’s tip.

. …

We … consider the question originally presented in the petition for certiorari, and conclude that the Illinois Supreme Court read the requirements of our Fourth Amendment decisions too restrictively.

. …

We now turn to the question … whether respondents’ rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the search of their car and house. A chronological statement of events usefully introduces the issues at stake. Bloomingdale, Ill., is a suburb of Chicago located in Du Page County. On May 3, 1978, the Bloomingdale Police Department received by mail an anonymous handwritten letter which read as follows:

“This letter is to inform you that you have a couple in your town who strictly make their living on selling drugs. They are Sue and Lance Gates, they live on Greenway, off Bloomingdale Rd. in the condominiums. Most of their buys are done in Florida. Sue his wife drives their car to Florida, where she leaves it to be loaded up with drugs, then Lance flys down and drives it back. Sue flys back after she drops the car off in Florida. May 3 she is driving down there again and Lance will be flying down in a few days to drive it back. At the time Lance drives the car back he has the trunk loaded with over $100,000.00 in drugs. Presently they have over $100,000.00 worth of drugs in their basement.”

“They brag about the fact they never have to work, and make their entire living on pushers.”

“I guarantee if you watch them carefully you will make a big catch. They are friends with some big drugs dealers, who visit their house often.”

“Lance & Susan Gates”

“Greenway”

“in Condominiums”

The letter was referred by the Chief of Police of the Bloomingdale Police Department to Detective Mader, who decided to pursue the tip. Mader learned … that an Illinois driver’s license had been issued to one Lance Gates, residing at a stated address in Bloomingdale. He contacted a confidential informant … and he also learned from a police officer assigned to O’Hare Airport that “L. Gates” had made a reservation on Eastern Airlines Flight 245 to West Palm Beach, Fla., scheduled to depart from Chicago on May 5 at 4:15 p. m.

Mader then made arrangements with an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration for surveillance of the May 5 Eastern Airlines flight. The agent later reported to Mader that Gates had boarded the flight, and that federal agents in Florida had observed him arrive in West Palm Beach and take a taxi to the nearby Holiday Inn. They also reported that Gates went to a room registered to one Susan Gates and that, at 7 o’clock the next morning, Gates and an unidentified woman left the motel in a Mercury bearing Illinois license plates and drove north-bound on an interstate highway frequently used by travelers to the Chicago area. In addition, the DEA agent informed Mader that the license plate number on the Mercury was registered to a Hornet station wagon owned by Gates. The agent also advised Mader that the driving time between West Palm Beach and Bloomingdale was approximately 22 to 24 hours.

Mader signed an affidavit setting forth the foregoing facts, and submitted it to a judge of the Circuit Court of Du Page County, together with a copy of the anonymous letter. The judge of that court thereupon issued a search warrant for the Gateses’ residence and for their automobile. The judge, in deciding to issue the warrant, could have determined that the modus operandi of the Gateses had been substantially corroborated. As the anonymous letter predicted, Lance Gates had flown from Chicago to West Palm Beach late in the afternoon of May 5th, had checked into a hotel room registered in the name of his wife, and, at 7 o’clock the following morning, had headed north, accompanied by an unidentified woman, out of West Palm Beach on an interstate highway used by travelers from South Florida to Chicago in an automobile bearing a license plate issued to him.

At 5:15 a.m. on March 7, only 36 hours after he had flown out of Chicago, Lance Gates, and his wife, returned to their home in Bloomingdale, driving the car in which they had left West Palm Beach some 22 hours earlier. The Bloomingdale police were awaiting them, searched the trunk of the Mercury, and uncovered approximately 350 pounds of marihuana. A search of the Gateses’ home revealed marihuana, weapons, and other contraband. The Illinois Circuit Court ordered suppression of all these items, on the ground that the affidavit submitted to the Circuit Judge failed to support the necessary determination of probable cause to believe that the Gateses’ automobile and home contained the contraband in question. This decision was affirmed in turn by the Illinois Appellate Court … and by a divided vote of the Supreme Court of Illinois. …

The Illinois Supreme Court concluded — and we are inclined to agree — that, standing alone, the anonymous letter … would not provide the basis for a magistrate’s determination that there was probable cause to believe contraband would be found in the Gateses’ car and home. The letter provides virtually nothing from which one might conclude that its author is either honest or his information reliable; likewise, the letter gives absolutely no indication of the basis for the writer’s predictions regarding the Gateses’ criminal activities. Something more was required, then, before a magistrate could conclude that there was probable cause to believe that contraband would be found in the Gateses’ home and car

The Illinois Supreme Court also properly recognized that Detective Mader’s affidavit might be capable of supplementing the anonymous letter with information sufficient to permit a determination of probable cause. In holding that the affidavit in fact did not contain sufficient additional information to sustain a determination of probable cause, the Illinois court applied a “two-pronged test,” derived from our decision in Spinelli … The Illinois Supreme Court, like some others, apparently understood Spinelli as requiring that the anonymous letter satisfy each of two independent requirements before it could be relied on. According to this view, the letter, as supplemented by Mader’s affidavit, first had to adequately reveal the “basis of knowledge” of the letterwriter — the particular means by which he came by the information given in his report. Second, it had to provide facts sufficiently establishing either the “veracity” of the affiant’s informant, or, alternatively, the “reliability” of the informant’s report in this particular case.

The Illinois court, alluding to an elaborate set of legal rules that have developed among various lower courts to enforce the “two-pronged test,” found that the test had not been satisfied. First, the “veracity” prong was not satisfied because “[t]here was simply no basis [for] conclud[ing] that the anonymous person [who wrote the letter to the Bloomingdale Police Department] was credible.” The court indicated that corroboration by police of details contained in the letter might never satisfy the “veracity” prong. …

We agree with the Illinois Supreme Court that an informant’s “veracity,” “reliability,” and “basis of knowledge” are all highly relevant in determining the value of his report. We do not agree, however, that these elements should be understood as entirely separate and independent requirements to be rigidly exacted in every case … Rather, as detailed below, they should be understood simply as closely intertwined issues that may usefully illuminate the common sense, practical question whether there is “probable cause” to believe that contraband or evidence is located in a particular place.

This totality-of-the-circumstances approach is far more consistent with our prior treatment of probable cause. … Perhaps the central teaching of our decisions bearing on the probable cause standard is that it is a “practical, nontechnical conception.” Brinegar v. United States, (1949).

. …

… [P]robable cause is a fluid concept — turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts — not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules. Informants’ tips doubtless come in many shapes and sizes from many different types of persons.

Moreover, the “two-pronged test” directs analysis into two largely independent channels — the informant’s “veracity” or “reliability” and his “basis of knowledge.” There are persuasive arguments against according these two elements such independent status. Instead, they are better understood as relevant considerations in the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has guided probable cause determinations: a deficiency in one may be compensated for, in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability. …

. …  Unlike a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis, which permits a balanced assessment of the relative weights of all the various indicia of reliability (and unreliability) attending an informant’s tip, the “two-pronged test” has encouraged an excessively technical dissection of informants’ tips. …

… Finely tuned standards such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of the evidence, useful in formal trials, have no place in the magistrate’s decision. While an effort to fix some general, numerically precise degree of certainty corresponding to “probable cause” may not be helpful, it is clear that “only the probability, and not a prima facie showing, of criminal activity, is the standard of probable cause.” Spinelli. …

If the affidavits submitted by police officers are subjected to the type of scrutiny some courts have deemed appropriate, police might well resort to warrantless searches, with the hope of relying on consent or some other exception to the Warrant Clause that might develop at the time of the search. … We think reaffirmation of this standard better serves the purpose of encouraging recourse to the warrant procedure and is more consistent with our traditional deference to the probable cause determinations of magistrates than is the “two-pronged test.”

. … We are convinced that this flexible, easily applied standard will better achieve the accommodation of public and private interests that the Fourth Amendment requires than does the approach that has developed from Aguilar and Spinelli.

. …

Our decisions applying the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis outlined above have consistently recognized the value of corroboration of details of an informant’s tip by independent police work.

. …

Our decision in Draper v. United States, (1959), however, is the classic case on the value of corroborative efforts of police officials. There, an informant named Hereford reported that Draper would arrive in Denver on a train from Chicago on one of two days, and that he would be carrying a quantity of heroin. The informant also supplied a fairly detailed physical description of Draper, and predicted that he would be wearing a light colored raincoat, brown slacks, and black shoes, and would be walking “real fast.” Id.  Hereford gave no indication of the basis for his information.

On one of the stated dates, police officers observed a man matching this description exit a train arriving from Chicago; his attire and luggage matched Hereford’s report, and he was walking rapidly. We explained in Draper that, by this point in his investigation, the arresting officer

“had personally verified every facet of the information given him by Hereford except whether petitioner had accomplished his mission, and had the three ounces of heroin on his person or in his bag. And surely, with every other bit of Hereford’s information being thus personally verified, [the officer] had ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that the remaining unverified bit of Hereford’s information — that Draper would have the heroin with him — was likewise true,” id.

The showing of probable cause in the present case was fully as compelling as that in Draper. Even standing alone, the facts obtained through the independent investigation of Mader and the DEA at least suggested that the Gateses were involved in drug trafficking. …

In addition, the judge could rely on the anonymous letter, which had been corroborated in major part by Mader’s efforts — just as had occurred in Draper.

. …

Finally, the anonymous letter contained a range of details relating not just to easily obtained facts and conditions existing at the time of the tip, but to future actions of third parties ordinarily not easily predicted.

. …

Our original phrasing of the so-called “two-pronged test” in Aguilar v. Texas, supra, suggests that the two prongs were intended simply as guides to a magistrate’s determination of probable cause, not as inflexible, independent requirements applicable in every case.

Excerpted by Rorie L. Solberg

Wilson v. Arkansas (1995)

514 U.S. 927 (1995)

Vote: 9-0
Decision: Reversed and remanded
Majority: Thomas, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer

JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

At the time of the framing, the common law of search and seizure recognized a law enforcement officer’s authority to break open the doors of a dwelling, but generally indicated that he first ought to announce his presence and authority. In this case, we hold that this common-law “knock and announce” principle forms a part of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment.

During November and December 1992, petitioner Sharlene Wilson made a series of narcotics sales to an informant acting at the direction of the Arkansas State Police. In late November, the informant purchased marijuana and methamphetamine at the home that petitioner shared with Bryson Jacobs. On December 30, the informant telephoned petitioner at her home and arranged to meet her at a local store to buy some marijuana. According to testimony presented below, petitioner produced a semiautomatic pistol at this meeting and waved it in the informant’s face, threatening to kill her if she turned out to be working for the police. Petitioner then sold the informant a bag of marijuana.

The next day, police officers applied for and obtained warrants to search petitioner’s home and to arrest both petitioner and Jacobs. Affidavits filed in support of the warrants set forth the details of the narcotics transactions and stated that Jacobs had previously been convicted of arson and firebombing. The search was conducted later that afternoon. Police officers found the main door to petitioner’s home open. While opening an unlocked screen door and entering the residence, they identified themselves as police officers and stated that they had a warrant. Once inside the home, the officers seized marijuana, methamphetamine, valium, narcotics paraphernalia, a gun, and ammunition. They also found petitioner in the bathroom, flushing marijuana down the toilet. Petitioner and Jacobs were arrested and charged with delivery of marijuana, delivery of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana.

Before trial, petitioner filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized during the search. Petitioner asserted that the search was invalid on various grounds, including that the officers had failed to “knock and announce” before entering her home. The trial court summarily denied the suppression motion. After a jury trial, petitioner was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 32 years in prison.

The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed petitioner’s conviction on appeal. The court noted that “the officers entered the home while they were identifying themselves,” but it rejected petitioner’s argument that “the Fourth Amendment requires officers to knock and announce prior to entering the residence.” Finding “no authority for [petitioner’s] theory that the knock and announce principle is required by the Fourth Amendment,” the court concluded that neither Arkansas law nor the Fourth Amendment required suppression of the evidence.

We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the lower courts as to whether the common-law knock and announce principle forms a part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry. We hold that it does, and accordingly reverse and remand.

… In evaluating the scope of this right, we have looked to the traditional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures afforded by the common law at the time of the framing … “Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable,” New Jersey v. T. L. O., (1985), our effort to give content to this term may be guided by the meaning ascribed to it by the Framers of the Amendment. An examination of the common law of search and seizure leaves no doubt that the reasonableness of a search of a dwelling may depend in part on whether law enforcement officers announced their presence and authority prior to entering.

. …

Our own cases have acknowledged that the common-law principle of announcement is “embedded in Anglo-American law,” Miller v. United States (1958), but we have never squarely held that this principle is an element of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment. We now so hold. Given the longstanding common-law endorsement of the practice of announcement, we have little doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment thought that the method of an officer’s entry into a dwelling was among the factors to be considered in assessing the reasonableness of a search or seizure. Contrary to the decision below, we hold that in some circumstances an officer’s unannounced entry into a home might be unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

This is not to say, of course, that every entry must be preceded by an announcement. The Fourth Amendment’s flexible requirement of reasonableness should not be read to mandate a rigid rule of announcement that ignores countervailing law enforcement interests. As even petitioner concedes, the common-law principle of announcement was never stated as an inflexible rule requiring announcement under all circumstances …

. …

Indeed, at the time of the framing, the common-law admonition that an officer “ought to signify the cause of his coming,” Semayne’s Case, [(1601)] had not been extended conclusively to the context of felony arrests. …

Thus, because the common-law rule was justified in part by the belief that announcement generally would avoid “the destruction or breaking of any house … by which great damage and inconvenience might ensue,” Semayne’s Case, courts acknowledged that the presumption in favor of announcement would yield under circumstances presenting a threat of physical violence. … Similarly, courts held that an officer may dispense with announcement in cases where a prisoner escapes from him and retreats to his dwelling … Proof of “demand and refusal” was deemed unnecessary in such cases because it would be a “senseless ceremony” to require an officer in pursuit of a recently escaped arrestee to make an announcement prior to breaking the door to retake him. Finally, courts have indicated that unannounced entry may be justified where police officers have reason to believe that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice were given.

We need not attempt a comprehensive catalog of the relevant countervailing factors here. For now, we leave to the lower courts the task of determining the circumstances under which an unannounced entry is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We simply hold that although a search or seizure of a dwelling might be constitutionally defective if police officers enter without prior announcement, law enforcement interests may also establish the reasonableness of an unannounced entry.

Respondent contends that the judgment below should be affirmed because the unannounced entry in this case was justified for two reasons. First, respondent argues that police officers reasonably believed that a prior announcement would have placed them in peril, given their knowledge that petitioner had threatened a government informant with a semiautomatic weapon and that Mr. Jacobs had previously been convicted of arson and firebombing. Second, respondent suggests that prior announcement would have produced an unreasonable risk that petitioner would destroy easily disposable narcotics evidence.

These considerations may well provide the necessary justification for the unannounced entry in this case. Because the Arkansas Supreme Court did not address their sufficiency, however, we remand to allow the state courts to make any necessary findings of fact and to make the determination of reasonableness in the first instance. The judgment of the Arkansas Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Excerpted by Makenna Perry