Cite as: 540 U. S. 31 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
announce requirement that inform the Fourth Amendment itself, 523 U. S., at 73. The upshot is that § 3109 is subject to an exigent circumstances exception, ibid., which qualifies the requirement of refusal after notice, just as it qualifies the obligation to announce in the first place. Absent exigency, the police must knock and receive an actual refusal or wait out the time necessary to infer one. But in a case like this, where the officers knocked and announced their presence, and forcibly entered after a reasonable suspicion of exigency had ripened, their entry satisfied § 3109 as well as the Fourth Amendment, even without refusal of admittance.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
So ordered.
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