Evidence can still be used in court even when it comes from police searches where officers failed to follow guidelines for knocking before entering on a search warrant, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

CNN reported June 15 that the court ruled 5-4 that excluding evidence was too high a penalty for procedural violations of rules calling for police to wait 15-20 seconds after knocking and announcing their presence before breaking into a residence or other premises.

"If the consequences of running afoul of the law were so massive, officers would be inclined to wait longer than the law requires -- producing inevitable violence against officers in some cases, and the destruction of evidence in many others," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia.

The conservative wing of the court, including Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito, all voted to give police more latitude in conducting searches.

The case before the court involved drug evidence seized from the home of Detroit resident Booker Hudson; police executing a search warrant waited only three to five seconds after knocking on Hudson's door before entering. "People have the right to answer the door in a dignified manner," argued Hudson's lawyer David Moran.

Writing in dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said that the Fourth Amendment places "a high value upon protecting privacy in the home" and said the latest ruling "weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection." Breyer predicted that more police will now flout the guidelines because they know they won't be punished for doing so.