Kentucky v. King

Background

An undercover buy of crack cocaine led officers to an apartment building. Uniformed officers smelled burnt marijuana coming from one unit, knocked loudly on that apartment door, and announced themselves as police. After they heard noises and movement inside that sounded like items being moved, officers said they would enter, forced the door, and found marijuana, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, cash, and drug paraphernalia in plain view. State courts were split: the trial court and court of appeals upheld the entry, but the Kentucky Supreme Court held the police impermissibly created the emergency and reversed the conviction.

Reasoning

The central question was whether officers may rely on the need to prevent imminent destruction of evidence when the officers themselves prompted the occupants to move or hide items by lawfully knocking and announcing. The Court held that if the officers’ conduct before the emergency was lawful and did not violate or threaten to violate constitutional protections, the exigent-circumstances exception can justify a warrantless entry to stop evidence destruction. The Court rejected tests that focus on officers’ subjective bad faith or on whether the emergency was reasonably foreseeable from the knock alone, and it assumed for argument that an exigency existed here before deciding the legal rule.

Real world impact

The ruling reverses the Kentucky Supreme Court and sends the case back for further proceedings. It clarifies that courts should allow warrantless entry to prevent evidence loss when officers act lawfully before the emergency, narrowing doctrines that would bar such entries in many drug-investigation scenarios.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Ginsburg dissented, warning the decision makes it easier for police to bypass the warrant process and arguing officers could and should have sought a warrant instead of creating the circumstances that led to entry.