390
Opinion of the Court
that nothing in Wilson's acknowledgment that the knock-and-announce rule was an element of the Fourth Amendment "reasonableness" requirement would prohibit application of a per se exception to that rule in a category of cases. 201 Wis. 2d, at 854-855, 549 N. W. 2d, at 220.
In reaching this conclusion, the Wisconsin court found it reasonable—after considering criminal conduct surveys, newspaper articles, and other judicial opinions—to assume that all felony drug crimes will involve "an extremely high risk of serious if not deadly injury to the police as well as the potential for the disposal of drugs by the occupants prior to entry by the police." Id., at 847-848, 549 N. W. 2d, at 219. Notwithstanding its acknowledgment that in "some cases, police officers will undoubtedly decide that their safety, the safety of others, and the effective execution of the warrant dictate that they knock and announce," id., at 863, 549 N. W. 2d, at 225, the court concluded that exigent circumstances justifying a no-knock entry are always present in felony drug cases. Further, the court reasoned that the violation of privacy that occurs when officers who have a search warrant forcibly enter a residence without first announcing their presence is minimal, given that the residents would ultimately be without authority to refuse the police entry. The principal intrusion on individual privacy interests in such a situation, the court concluded, comes from the issuance of the search warrant, not the manner in which it is executed. Id., at 864-865, 549 N. W. 2d, at 226. Accordingly, the court determined that police in Wisconsin do not need specific information about dangerousness, or the possible destruction of drugs in a particular case, in order to dispense with the knock-and-announce requirement in felony drug cases.1
1 Several other state courts—in cases that predate our decision in Wilson—have adopted similar rules, concluding that simple probable cause to search a home for narcotics always allows the police to forgo the knock-and-announce requirement. See, e. g., People v. Lujan, 484 P. 2d 1238, 1241 (Colo. 1971) (en banc); Henson v. State, 236 Md. 519, 523-524, 204 A.
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