Kentucky v. King
The Supreme Court ruled that police who knock on a door and announce themselves have not done anything unconstitutional, so if the occupants then appear to be destroying evidence, officers can break in without a warrant.
The decision rejects a stricter rule that would have barred warrantless entry whenever it was foreseeable that knocking would prompt evidence destruction, giving police more room to act quickly in drug investigations without first going to a judge.
“Where, as here, the police did not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment, warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is reasonable and thus allowed.”
The Court's core holding on when police-created exigencies remain valid grounds for warrantless entry.
How it got here: A trial court denied suppression, the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed, but the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed; the State sought and received Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Police officers tracking a drug sale smelled marijuana outside an apartment door in Lexington, Kentucky, and knocked loudly, announcing themselves. Hearing what sounded like movement inside, they believed evidence was being destroyed, forced the door open, and found the tenant, his girlfriend, and a guest with drugs in plain view, leading to charges against Hollis King.
The question before the Court
If police smell drugs outside an apartment and then knock loudly, can noises they hear afterward justify breaking in without a warrant?
Why it matters
Police investigating suspected drug activity can now knock and announce their presence even with enough evidence to get a warrant, and if they then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed, they can force entry without ever seeking judicial approval, so long as their own conduct up to that point was lawful.
What changes now
The case returns to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which must now decide the factual question the Supreme Court did not reach: whether a genuine exigency (real evidence-destruction risk) actually existed based on the noises officers heard. This is a final ruling on the legal test for police-created exigencies, though the ultimate outcome for King's conviction depends on that remaining factual determination.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether a real exigency actually existed in this case — it assumed one for the sake of argument and sent that factual question back to the Kentucky Supreme Court. It also left open whether police threats to break in without permission would create an impermissible exigency.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
“In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”Ginsburg's central objection that the ruling lets police sidestep judicial warrant review.
Justice Ginsburg argued the majority's rule lets police routinely bypass the warrant requirement by knocking, listening for sounds, and then forcing entry, even when they had ample time to get a warrant beforehand. She would have held that the urgency justifying warrantless entry must exist when police arrive, not be created afterward by their own conduct, agreeing with the Kentucky Supreme Court that the officers should have sought a warrant given they already had probable cause.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started from the established rule that warrantless home searches are allowed when genuine 'exigent circumstances' exist, such as a real risk that evidence will be destroyed before officers can get a warrant.
- It then addressed the 'police-created exigency' doctrine, a limit lower courts had developed saying police cannot rely on an emergency they themselves manufactured; the problem was that lower courts used many different, inconsistent tests for when police 'create' an exigency improperly.
- The Court adopted a single test: an exigency is impermissibly police-created only when officers gain entry by actually violating the Fourth Amendment or by threatening to do so beforehand; otherwise, even foreseeable reactions to lawful police conduct do not disqualify the exigency.
- The Court rejected rival tests based on officers' bad-faith motive, on whether evidence destruction was 'reasonably foreseeable,' on whether police delayed seeking a warrant despite having probable cause, and on whether the investigation followed 'standard' police practices, finding each unworkable or inconsistent with objective Fourth Amendment analysis.
- Applying the new rule, the Court found that officers who merely banged loudly on the door and announced 'police' did nothing unlawful or threatening, so any resulting exigency from the occupants' reaction was not improperly created.
- Because the officers' pre-entry conduct was lawful, the Court held that if a genuine exigency existed, the warrantless entry was justified, leaving the factual question of whether an exigency actually existed for the Kentucky Supreme Court to resolve on remand.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Johnson v. United States (333 U. S. 10)
The majority said this earlier warrantless-entry case did not involve a claimed destruction-of-evidence exigency, so it does not control here.