United States v. Thomas Dale Peterson

Thomas Dale Peterson asserts that a police SWAT team failed to fully comply with the knock-and-announce requirement prior to executing a warrant to search his residence. He appeals the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence found. Because the SWAT team’s entry in this case violated neither the Fourth Amendment nor 18 U.S.C. § 3109 , we affirm.

I

In late 2001, Vancouver, Washington, police officers, acting in cooperation with police in nearby Portland, Oregon, learned that Peterson was involved in an identity theft operation and other criminal conduct. This information came from three sources who supplied probable cause for issuance of the search warrant. The first source told police that Peterson and an associate named Tai Watson had been stealing mail in Portland and Vancouver. According to this source, Peterson possessed a ring of duplicate U.S. Postal Service mailbox keys, and the floor of Peterson’s room in his Vancouver residence was littered with stolen mail. The source also told police that Watson possessed a black SKS assault rifle and some two-part (binary) plastic explosives.

According to the first source, after Watson was arrested he phoned from jail and…