Janie Boschma

Knock, knock.

It’s the Eau Claire police.

Your party mobilizes to the basement and you freeze, not knowing what to do next.

Do you let them in or tell them to buzz off?

“You always have the right to say they can’t come in,” assistant state public defender Mary Liedtke said.

But denying officers consent may not always work.

The Fourth Amendment protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

However, there are times when a search can be conducted if there is a reasonable cause to do so, law enforcement officials and legal experts said.

The Supreme Court determined the home to be the most protected place, so there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, professor of political science Michael Fine said. However, when people are having noisy parties and allowing public access, the hosts are no longer seeking that privacy.

“Having a loud party changes the most underlying protection of the house, which is a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Fine said.

There are two situations in which officers don’t need the consent of the resident to enter the home, said Sgt. Chris Kirchman of University Police. The first is if the officer has a warrant to enter the residence. The second is in a welfare situation.

If there is a safety concern – someone is in danger, injured, or there is a threat that someone will be in injured – the officer can enter.

“We can’t just go into any home for any old reason,” Kirchman said.

Also, an officer can enter a residence without a warrant if evidence could be destroyed, Fine said.

But the issue is still cloudy, Fine said, with regards to consent. Much of the “reasonableness” of search and seizure is still being decided in the courts today.

There are some gray areas.

For example, in September 2005 Eau Claire police broke up a party on the 800 block of Chippewa St. and gave out 80 citations for underage drinking. According to The Spectator archives, their entry into the house was obtained in the form an undercover officer posing as typical college student buying a $5 cup of beer.

“The officer comes in and buys a cup,” Kirchman said. “If (the hosts) are letting anyone in, an officer is no different than the general public.”

But Fine said an officer must announce himself or herself before entering a residence.

This summer, UW-Stout junior John Brehm had people sitting on the porch of his house at 1120 Graham Ave. He said two people on the porch were goofing around and one fell off. An officer saw this, Brehm said, and gave the two underage drinking citations.

One woman, to whom police issued a citation, didn’t have her ID. The officer told her to go get it in the house, Brehm said. When she walked into the house, the officer followed her in. Brehm said no one gave the officer consent to come in, but no one in the house received citations, he said.

Liedtke said she has heard of officers showing up to a party and telling the resident if they aren’t let in, they will give the house a noise complaint.

Both Fine and Liedtke said that once the officer is legally in the house, whatever he or she sees in plain view is fair game. The Eau Claire Police Department did not return a phone message Friday afternoon.

Fine recommended first that students don’t break the law. But if they do get themselves into a situation where police are at their door, he suggested courteously telling the officer they didn’t realize how loud they were and that they will keep it down.