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Opinion of the Court
kept there. Their conduct was clearly reasonable and we conclude that there was no Fourth Amendment violation.3
Respondent also argues, however, that suppression is appropriate because the officers executing the warrant violated 18 U. S. C. § 3109. This statutory argument fares no better. Section 3109 provides:
"The officer may break open any outer or inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house, or anything therein, to execute a search warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance or when necessary to liberate himself or a person aiding him in the execution of the warrant."
Respondent contends that the statute specifies the only circumstances under which an officer may damage property in executing a search warrant, and that it therefore forbids all other property-damaging entries.
But by its terms § 3109 prohibits nothing. It merely authorizes officers to damage property in certain instances. Even accepting, arguendo, that the statute implicitly forbids some of what it does not expressly permit, it is of no help to respondent. In Miller v. United States, 357 U. S. 301, 313 (1958), we noted that § 3109's "requirement of prior notice . . . before forcing entry . . . codif[ied] a tradition embedded in Anglo-American law." We repeated this point in Sabbath v. United States, 391 U. S. 585, 591, n. 8 (1968) (referring to § 3109 as "codification" of the common law). In neither of
3 After concluding that the Fourth Amendment had been violated in this case, the Ninth Circuit further concluded that the guns should be excluded from evidence. Because we conclude that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, we need not decide whether, for example, there was sufficient causal relationship between the breaking of the window and the discovery of the guns to warrant suppression of the evidence. Cf. Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S. 431 (1984); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963).
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