No knock, knock... No who's there... Thank you, Samuel Alito...

oh, THIS is just swell...

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that evidence could be used even when the police entered a suspect's home illegally by failing to knock on the door or announce their presence.

By a 5-4 vote, splitting along conservative-liberal lines, the high court ruled that a police violation of the so-called knock-and-announce rule does not require that the evidence seized during the search be thrown out.

The court's newest member, conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the police in the latest decision by the conservative majority upholding police powers.

Liberal justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented.

"Today's opinion is thus doubly troubling. It represents a significant departure from the court's precedents. And it weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," Breyer wrote.

He said the ruling will destroy the strongest legal incentive for the police to comply with that constitutional requirement.

The libertarian Cato Institute also denounced the ruling. "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," Cato policy analyst Radley Balko said.

alito's working out quite nicely, wouldn't you say, george...?

i could have sworn i was a citizen of the united states of america... i could have sworn we had a constitution and a bill of rights that protected citizens from this kind of police-state tactics...

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