Fourth Amendment Lawsuit Sparked By Raid On Gun Owner’s Home

The Rutherford Institute is pushing the highest court in the land to hear a Fourth Amendment no-knock warrant case spurred by a “SWAT-team style forceful entry” into John Quinn’s home. Does exercising your Second Amendment rights mean that you automatically give up the Fourth Amendment protections guaranteed by the Constitution? That is the exact question one Texas man is seeking the US Supreme Court to answer.

Texas police officers did obtain a warrant based on the suspicion that John Quinn’s son may possess drugs, but the warrant reportedly did not permit the officers to enter the home without either knocking or announcing their entry. During the raid, Quinn was shot by the officers as the startled man tried to grab his legally owned gun. According to statements in Quinn v. State of Texas, the man believed he was about to become a victim of a home invasion.

Rutherford Institute attorneys are arguing that making legal gun ownership and possession grounds for law enforcement officers to “evade” Fourth Amendment protections both improperly limits and penalizes citizen’s right to bear arms. Fourth Amendment standards dictate that police officers must knock and announce their presence at a home before opting for a forcible entry. Law enforcement officers may however, go the no knock route immediately if a threat of violence or the potential that evidence could be destroyed is present.

John W. Whitehad, the intsitute’s president, had this to say about the no-knock warrant case:

“Whatever the issue might be, whether it’s mass surveillance, no-knock raids, or the right to freely express one’s views about the government, we’ve moved into a new age in which the rights of the citizenry are being treated as a secondary concern by the White House, Congress, the courts, and their vast holding of employees, including law enforcement officials. With government officials routinely sidestepping the Constitution and reinterpreting the law to their own purposes, it makes a mockery of everything this nation is supposed to stand for—self-government, justice, and the rule of law.”

The Fourth Amendment battle began in Collin County, Texas in 2006. After following the procedure to obtain a warrant to search for drugs which allegedly could be in the possession of the homeowner’s son, the police officers allegedly decided to forcibly break into the home based entirely on the suspicion that guns were also present inside the resident. John Quinn was asleep in bed when the loud sounds of the officers entering the home began. The officers did ultimately find cocaine in the home – less than a single gram.

Lower courts in Texas rejected John Quinn’s objection to the execution of a no-knock warrant stating that the police officers knew there were guns inside the home and were therefore justified in the decision to make an unannounced forced entry. Following that same logic, every registered gun owner in the United States has reduced Fourth Amendment rights. The number of potential violent and unnecessary deaths to both homeowners and law enforcement officers during such no-knock raids are staggering to consider. A scared child running to daddy could easily be caught in the crossfire when gun owners think home invaders and not police officers are barging through the front door.

An excerpt from the US Supreme Court petition reads:

“Texas courts have upheld a conviction based on a verdict resulting from a jury charge that did not required the jury to find both elements of a two-element offense beyond a reasonable doubt, which means the conviction was procured in violation of the due process and trial-by-jury clauses of the US Constitution.”

The Rutherford Institute, a non-profit Constitutional Rights organization, also argued in the US Supreme Court petition that legally possessing a gun is not sufficient cause to disregard Fourth Amendment protections and initiate no knock warrants. The road to the highest court in the land will surely be a long one, but Second Amendment supporters across the country are keeping an keen eye on this Texas case and urging for a hearing as well.

[Image Via: Shutterstock.com]