U.S. Supreme Court to hear North Las Vegas search case

Monday, Oct. 13, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday in a North Las Vegas case that could have far-reaching effects on the way police conduct searches.

The case involves a North Las Vegas Police SWAT team that broke down the apartment door of a suspected drug dealer while he took a shower in 1998.

Police said they knocked and waited about 15 seconds before breaking down the door of Lashawn Lowell Banks' apartment near Owens Avenue and Lamb Boulevard on July 15, 1998. The masked officers found Banks, 26, naked and soapy, as he came out of his bathroom. In 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that police armed with search warrants must knock and announce themselves unless they can show they had reason to believe that a suspect may destroy evidence.

During the search of Banks' apartment, police questioned Banks while he was naked and handcuffed, and he admitted to possessing the crack cocaine found in the apartment.

Banks was sentenced to 11 years in prison and served four years of the sentence before being freed pending the outcome of his appeal that his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures were violated.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that the cocaine found in the apartment could not be used as evidence against Banks because of an unreasonable search and seizure. The court found that waiting 15 to 20 seconds before entering the apartment did not meet the standards set down by the Supreme Court in 1997.

The Bush administration has urged the Supreme Court to use the Banks case to clarify how long officers must wait during raids to serve warrants.

Banks' attorney, Randall Roske, said if officers had waited just a few more seconds, "it might have afforded (Banks) the chance to have met the intruders with the small dignity of a towel. It is just this sort of privacy interest which is at the very core of the Fourth Amendment."