Code of Alabama
Ala. Code § 15-10-4 (2026)
Arrest Without Warrant - Duty of Arresting Officer; Authority of Officer to Break and Enter Dwelling House.
✓ official Alabama Legislature (ALISON) text, current July 2026
When arresting a person without a warrant, the officer must inform of his authority and the cause of arrest, except when the person is arrested in the actual commission of a public offense or on pursuit. In making a warrantless arrest, an officer has authority to break open an outer or inner door or window of a dwelling house if, after notice of his office and purpose, he is refused admittance.
(Code 1852, §446; Code 1867, §3995; Code 1876, §4665; Code 1886, §4263; Code 1896, §5212; Code 1907, §6270; Code 1923, §3264; Code 1940, T. 15, §155.)
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4
cases, 1980–2004 · leading case: Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980).
Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980). “See Ala. Code § 15-10-4 (1975); Alaska Stat. Ann.”
Walker v. City of Mobile, 508 So. 2d 1209 (Ala. Crim. App. 1987). “" § 15-10-4. "[T]here are exceptions to the duty of an officer to make known his official capacity and the cause of arrest.”
Williams v. State, 527 So. 2d 764 (Ala. Crim. App. 1988). “Since a murder had been committed next door, it was reasonable to expect that inquiries would be made of the occupants of the Williams residence.”
Walker v. State, 895 So. 2d 366 (Ala. Crim. App. 2004). “As a threshold matter, we hold that the Legislature intended for § 15-10-4 to codify the general knock-and-announce principle and its recognized common-law exceptions.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.