OFFICERS NEVER FACE PROSECUTION FOR VIOLATING THIS LAW. THAT COULD CHANGE.

• The Florida Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling June 25, 2026, in the case of State of Florida v. Keith Alexander Times, a criminal prosecution centered on an FDLE drug trafficking investigation
• Justices said that although state statute allows prosecutors to charge law enforcement with a second-degree misdemeanor for violating knock & announce law while serving search warrants, they never do
• The court has stripped defendants of the well-used option to have evidence thrown out of court if police violate the knock & announce law and invites prosecutors to charge police instead

The Florida Supreme Court has issued a significant clarification regarding the state's "knock and announce" statute, which dictates how law enforcement must enter a residence.

In a majority opinion, justices determined that prosecuting an officer who breaks the law when entering someone’s home while executing a search warrant is a more effective deterrent than simply throwing out any evidence obtained during the search.

The question criminal defense attorneys have is whether prosecutors will be willing to charge officers who violate the statute?

The Florida Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on June 25, 2026, in the case of State of Florida v. Keith Alexander Times, a criminal prosecution centered on a Florida Department of Law Enforcement drug trafficking investigation in Leon County.

The defense wanted evidence gathered during the execution of a legal search warrant thrown out because although police knocked multiple times and announced their presence, an officer only explicitly stated they had a “search warrant” seconds before law enforcement used a battering ram to smash the front door and force their way inside.

What is knock-and-announce?

According to state law, police must clearly knock, announce themselves and their purpose and give enough time for someone to come to the door before entering.

The entire case before the Florida Supreme Court was a battle over whether the trial judge was right to suppress the evidence seized in the Times case, or whether the drugs and guns should be allowed at trial despite the rushed police entry.

The court decided the evidence should be reinstated in the case because throwing it out did not adequately address the heart of the complaint, which was the officer not stating sooner that they had a search warrant, a violation of knock-and-announce.

Charging police instead of throwing out evidence

In a 6-1 decision, the court explicitly stripped defendants of the "exclusionary rule," or throwing out evidence, as a remedy for knock-and-announce violations, a move that deviates from decades of common practice and has potential implications for criminal cases and police accountability.

Historically, if law enforcement agencies violated the knock-and-announce statute, the court would throw out evidence as a “remedy” for the violation, even though Florida statute allows the state to prosecute law enforcement officers with a second-degree misdemeanor.

The Florida Supreme Court said there’s a distinct legal difference between a “remedy,” which addresses wrongdoing, and a “penalty,” which punishes the wrongdoer.

The justices pointed out that the option to charge an officer for violating the knock-and-announce law has been available in Florida for more than a century, but no officer has ever been charged.

In the majority opinion, written by Justice Meredith Sasso, the court says that fact alone shows that throwing out evidence is not an adequate deterrent to law enforcement officers who break the law.  

“Indeed, the absolute absence of criminal prosecutions against law enforcement officers for violating the knock-and-announce statute since the enactment of section 933.17, of which there must have been hundreds if not thousands, serves as a significant indicator of the provision’s functional nullity,” Sasso said.

She added that “in the highly unlikely event that an officer was prosecuted for their statutory knock-and-announce violation,” any evidence the officer obtained could still be used in the prosecution.

“Thus, applying (the law) in the knock-and-announce context would merely be a ‘penalty’ for the violating officer, not a ‘remedy’ for the Floridian whose home was entered in violation of the knock-and-announce statute,” Sasso wrote.

'Equal accountability under the law'

The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers supports the court’s decision, saying, “If prosecutors believe in equal accountability under the law, then officers who willfully violate search warrant statutes should not receive a special exemption from criminal prosecution.”

“What the Supreme Court said with their ruling was, ‘Hey, we got it wrong when we decided that that's what should be done because this statute is on the books and says nothing about excluding the evidence,'” Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers President Aaron Way said. “It’s a positive step in the right direction.”

Way said it will be “interesting” to see if prosecutors apply the law and charge law enforcement officers who violate knock-and-announce.

The News Journal reached out for comment to the State Attorney’s Office for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida, as well as the office of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Neither office responded.

Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said he’s “comfortable” with the court’s decision and having the option to charge an offending officer with a violation because his department works to abide by the law.

“We have no intention of violating those rules,” Simmons said. “We are trained to do just that, to knock and announce everyone. I've executed dozens and dozens of search warrants during my career. We've never really had a problem with knock-and-announce.”

Pensacola Police came under scrutiny in 2022 for violating the spirit of "knock-and-announce" protocols because officers waited only 10 seconds after announcing themselves before using a battering ram to breach Corey Marioneaux Jr.’s door.

Marioneaux, who was not a suspect in the case police were investigating, believed his home was being broken into by violent criminals while he and his two toddler children were home.

He fired one defensive shot that hit a SWAT shield.

The moment he realized it was the police, he immediately dropped his weapon, surrendered and apologized.

Police charged him with attempted murder, but the State Attorney’s Office dropped all charges, explicitly citing that he did not have "adequate time to perceive and appreciate" that the people breaching his home were uniformed officers.

No officers were charged with violating knock-and-announce in that case.

Mollye Barrows is an award-winning investigative reporter for the Pensacola News Journal covering legal justice and government accountability matters.