The Supreme Court just ruled 5–4 that police who conduct an illegal “no-knock” raid on a citizen’s home can use evidence seized from that raid against the suspect at trial.

Taken with the high degree of immunity from lawsuits courts and lawmakers have given to police officers in these cases, there is now no real penalty for police who ignore the legal requirement to knock and announce themselves before forcibly entering a private home.

We can expect the already disturbing trend of military-style police raids on American citizens to get substantially worse.

Last April, I wrote a synopsis of what’s at stake in the Hudson case for Slate.