Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

Did you hear the Supreme Court knock knock joke of the week?

Knock knock.

Who's th- gbivgs lviushv ;uiosdv;fbv dh kskblujvbseiuvhew;ofihnewrikhbe. Ouch – stop kicking me in the spleen!

Oh man, that gets me every time!

For those of us who hoped against hope that new Supreme Court Justices would not send our country into a Orwellian tailspin, yesterday destroyed our last bit of optimism. In a 5-4 ruling that aligned on strict partisan agendas, the Court ruled that police backed by a search warrant can enter a home without knocking.

Now I like the police. My uncle was a NYPD sergeant. I even have a friend who is a Chicago cop and he tells the best – albeit racist and offensive – stories. These guys risk their lives every day and get too little respect from the people they serve and their politician bosses. That said, can't we make their jobs easier without destroying the constitution?

Now here's the thing – the case in question involved a hardened criminal who was, in fact, guilty of the charges named in the warrant. I can see why the gray areas are difficult to see for "ends justify the means" people. That's why we're SUPPOSED to have enlightened thinkers on the bench…like this guy:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a heated dissent… that was much longer than the majority ruling.

By declining to declare the evidence inadmissible, "the court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution's knock-and-announce requirement," Justice Breyer wrote. He called the majority's finding "doubly troubling."

"It represents a significant departure from the court's precedents," he wrote. "And it weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection."

The minority rejected any suggestion that violations like that in Detroit are isolated. "The cases reporting knock-and-announce violations are legion," Justice Breyer wrote. And contrary to the majority's assertion, there is no known case in which a plaintiff has collected "more than nominal damages" for such a violation, he wrote.

"Of course, had the police entered the house lawfully, they would have found the gun and drugs," Justice Breyer wrote. "But that fact is beside the point. The question is not what police might have done had they not behaved unlawfully. The question is what they did do."

"Would a warrant that authorizes entry into a home on Tuesday permit the police to enter on Monday?" Justice Breyer asked rhetorically. "Would a warrant that authorizes entry during the day authorize the police to enter during the middle of the night?"

Let's forget Justice Breyer's rhetorical questions and jump back to his penultimate paragraph. Instead of arguing that the police *would* have discovered Booker Hudson's gun and drugs if they had legally executed the warrant – as Justice Asscunt Scalia essentially did – why do the officers get a free pass? Yes, the ruling may have retrospectively cleared them of wrong-doing, but they were trained to know their actions were illegal at the time.

What's next? Our country invading a sovereign nation under one pretense and then revising justification after its lies were exposed? Now who would believe that?