A bill to restrict so-called “no-knock” warrants in Georgia passed Wednesday, although a Senate committee made so many changes it is now anathema to law enforcement.
As such, Senate Bill 159 is likely dead on arrival to the powerful Rules Committee — its next stop before it would hit the full Senate for a vote.
"Problematical" is how its sponsor, Senate Judiciary Non-Civil Committee Chairman Jesse Stone, R-Waynesboro, described the alterations. "I can't say I'm persuaded, but it's the will of the committee."
No-knock warrants in Georgia have been a target in years past, but they gained greater attention during this legislative session because of the disfigurement last year of a 19-month-old toddler during a botched drug raid in Habersham County. A flash-bang stun grenade landed in the playpen of Bounkham “Baby Bou Bou” Phonesavanh during the May 28 raid, dislodging the child’s nose and damaging his mouth and chest.
As originally written, SB 159 proposed to acknowledge no-knock warrants for the first time in state law, despite decades of use by police as allowed by the courts. It would require all the state’s law enforcement agencies to adopt policy guidelines for using the warrants, as well as mandate supervision and training for how best to carry them out.
It would also acknowledge what motivation is needed to get one from a judge: reasonable suspicion about harm to an officer or the likely destruction of evidence, something that is currently the practice across the state.
A bipartisan group of Stone's committee members, however, voted to raise that requirement by saying law enforcement agencies would instead need to show probable cause. Probable cause was originally proposed in Senate Bill 45, Democratic-sponsored legislation about no-knock warrants that had never moved out of committee.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who is also chairman of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said such a requirement would put officers in a legal bind. “It’s hard to say in some cases you can prevent the evidence from being destroyed,” Porter said.
The committee additionally voted to require grand jury oversight of the warrants — something not likely to pass muster with judges, who under the bill would be forced to testify about why they approved such a warrant.
The action came as several people testified the state had no business allowing no-knock warrants at all. As written, state law requires verbal warning when serving a warrant at what it says should be a reasonable time. Enforcing such language over current practice would protect both citizens and law enforcement officers, they said.
No-knock warrants have sparked other controversies in Georgia, including one that followed the 2006 killing of 92-year-old Atlanta resident Kathryn Johnston after officers stormed her home.
About the Author
