To make an arrest in criminal actions, the officer may break open any outer or inner door or window of a dwelling house or other building, or any other enclosure, if, after notice of his office and purpose, he be refused admittance.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.200
Officer may break open doors
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Payton v. New York (1980)
Most recently applied in Rice v. Barnes (January 1997)
Effective: 28 Aug 1939; (RSMo 1939 § 3889); Prior revisions: 1929 § 3499; 1919 § 3844; 1909 § 5052
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Missouri statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.