Maybe I phrased my post wrongly. It's not the legally correct thing to do; it's a tactically appropriate thing to do considering potential legal arguments in the future.
Yes, but you need to preserve arguments and technicalities now or else you forfeit them when you get to the courtroom later. That's my (and Sean's) only point.
Understood, so my question becomes why Sean would think Nick's conduct was even
tactically advantageous, or what exactly Nick was trying to preserve. This appears to be more of an emotional response than anything tactical as the only argument being preserved amounts to: "Your honor, I didn't even
want the police to be there."
Given Nick's legal decisions in his own life, Nick is more concerned with his ego than anything. Making the police work for it to get into the premises leads to a net loss for Nick and his family, and that is entirely due to Nick's non-compliance. That said, you don't have to answer for Sean and why he thought it was "good" either legally or tactically.
Thank you for elaborating on the theory behind what Sean was saying, though the context Sean is applying this reasoning to is... puzzling at best.
He's an asshole, but from the incident report, it isn't clear they showed him the search warrant before they kicked in the door. It looks like:
1. Traffic stop Nick
2. Try to enter the residence with the search warrant, get rebuffed by a child
3. Try to get the entry code from Nick, he refuses
4. The police kick in the door
5. They bring Nick to the residence and show him the search warrant, he throws it on the floor
Maybe they showed him a copy of the search warrant during the traffic stop, but if they did, it isn't detailed in the report.
Technically, there is no indication of when Nick was informed of or otherwise shown a search warrant.
Nick demanded a copy when they got to the house possibly so he could throw it on the ground to preserve his legal argument that he didn't want them on his property.
Information is spotty. Looking forward to that bodycam footage.
Everyone seems to forget that cops are allowed to lie. They can, and do, lie to coerce various types of case-making confessions ("we know what you did so fess up to cut a deal") and consent-establishing searches ("the warrant is on the way but it'll look better if you let us get started"). That's just in normal everyday cases, too, before you factor in Nick's internet (in)famous status which could pretty easily bring crazy people playing make believe as cops to his door step.
We do not have a minute-by-minute timeline of what appears to be a very hasty use of force. We do not have body cam footage. Hell, we don't even have Nick's coked-out recounting of events.
The description given in the probable cause document does not establish that the police had contact with anyone at the house beyond the minor child before ramming the door.
That same document does suggest Nick was not shown a valid warrant prior to arriving on scene, by which point the door was already busted down.
If no adult on scene (meaning Kayla or possibly even April) had made contact with the cops to be shown the warrant, and Nick himself hadn't yet been shown the warrant, then it is absolutely the correct thing to do to refuse entry in what is probably a grand total of 5 very chaotic minutes.
No one is arguing that cops don't lie. Unsure why you brought that up since there is no evidence that the policed lied in this instance. Sounds like a personal story is behind this, but I don't mean to pry.
If a child is answering the door because the only adults are strung out somewhere, and the police are there due to possible child endangerment due to drug use or the like, there will be a sense of urgency.
From a police or EMS perspective, every second counts when a child is potentially in danger, but then maybe I'm not focusing enough on Nick's legal needs.
