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State Supreme Court: Flash-Bang Grenades Were 'Reasonable' Force

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Evansville Police did not use unreasonable force in executing a search warrant on a home with a SWAT team and flash-bang grenades.

In December 2014, police served a search warrant at Mario Watkin's home using a battering ram, heavily armed SWAT officers and a flash-bang grenade in a room occupied by a 9-month old baby.

A jury found Watkins guilty on several drug charges. Watkins appealed on the grounds that police didn't have enough evidence for a search warrant and that the use of force was excessive.

Early this year, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the convictions. At the request of Attorney General Curtis Hill, the case was transferred to the Supreme Court, which this week affirmed the trial court's convictions.

The panel of four justices ruled it was reasonable to use that level of force because Watkins had a violent criminal history and a police informant said there was a hand gun in the home.

The ruling says an officer took precautions before deploying the flash-bang grenade, including taking a "quick peek" inside the home. The officer says he didn't see the infant in the room.

In the State's appeal to the Supreme Court, Curtis Hill says courts should not second-guess officers. The justices do not agree.

"True, we refrain from 'unrealistic second-guessing,' especially when 'police are acting in a swiftly developing situation,'" the Supreme Court ruling says. "But a reasonableness analysis under Article 1, Section 11 [of the state Constitution] must account for more than police officers' judgement calls; it is a multi-faceted determination that ultimately belongs to judges."

Although the Supreme Court determined the Evansville Police officers' actions were appropriate in this situation, they say that wouldn't necessarily be true in other circumstances.

"But make no mistake: flash-bang grenades should be the exception in search warrant executions," the ruling says. "Their extraordinary degree of intrusion will in many cases make a search constitutionally unreasonable."

Read the complete Supreme Court ruling below:

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