Ok, that's one way to look at it.
Of course, why would the police be testing your doorknob, out of the hundreds of millions of doorknobs? They would have to have some reason to think that testing your doorknob would reveal something interesting.
The 4th amendment protected us from having people break into our houses and trash them looking for evidence they could use against us. Having a person walk up to my door just doesn't seem like much of a violation.
By this reasoning, a police officer shouldn't be allowed to ring my doorbell, since the doorbell is part of my house. Ringing the doorbell might cause me to come to the door, and my presence might provide clues, or I might be persuaded to let him in to look around -- so ringing without warrant to ring should be illegal.
I wonder who owns the outside door knobs in a condominium?
The 4th amendment was not intended to protect criminals from being caught. This is not a game. It was intended to minimize the inconvenience to citizens from law enforcement activities.
And I note that having found drugs on the door knob is not itself probably cause to invade your house. The information has to be taken to a judge, who can make the same judgment about the meaning of the evidence as he does already with other evidence. Surely judges realise that people touch door knobs, and would want some other information as to why it is rational that the drugs found are related to the house.
The poster has a bigger problem. If you really have a low-life druggie who comes to your house, if he sits in your living room for too long the police state can seize your house, without a trial, on the excuse that you harbored a drug addict. You would have to then go to court to prove that you had no idea he was a druggie. You probably won't win.
All that being said, it would seem prudent to get a judge to sign a warrant to do a swab test, rather than wait for the test to go to court.....
You forgot your sarcasm tag.
Of course, why would the police be testing your doorknob, out of the hundreds of millions of doorknobs? They would have to have some reason to think that testing your doorknob would reveal something interesting.The informant who just touched the door perhaps. This standard makes it way too easy to set someone up for a search.
-Eric
It's not like I have homeless crackheads crashing at my house and I don't run with those kinds of people. My point is that if the cops are allowed to swab doorknobs, then that makes me accountable for the behavior of anybody that comes to my doorstep for any reason. Do you want your front door kicked in because you got visited by an old college buddy or relative that has a fairly new crack habit that nobody knows about yet?
Or, they could just walk down the street testing every doorknob, and get warrants on any house that comes up "hot". Bad procedure. Good ruling.