Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 17. CRIMINAL PROCEDURE · Chapter 5. SEARCHES AND SEIZURES · Article 2. SEARCHES WITH WARRANTS

17-5-27. Use of force in execution of search warrant.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

All necessary and reasonable force may be used to effect an entry into any building or property or part thereof to execute a search warrant if, after verbal notice or an attempt in good faith to give verbal notice by the officer directed to execute the same of his authority and purpose:
(1)
He is refused admittance;#
(2)
The person or persons within the building or property or part thereof refuse to acknowledge and answer the verbal notice or the presence of the person or persons therein is unknown to the officer; or#
(3)
The building or property or part thereof is not then occupied by any person.#

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Orig. Code 1863, § 4636; Code 1868, § 4660; Code 1873, § 4758; Code 1882, § 4758; Penal Code 1895, § 1244; Penal Code 1910, § 1326; Code 1933, § 27-301; Ga. L. 1966, p. 567, § 8.

Law reviews

For note, ‘‘Cops or Robbers? How Georgia’s Defense of Habitation Statute Applies to No-Knock Raids by Police,’’ see 26 Ga. St. U.L. Rev. 585 (2010).

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t17-(v15)-2020-pdf.pdf, Volume V15, 2020 edition, pages 221 to 222; merge action: annotated; file SHA-256 0b0d45f9c609.

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