I am a FReeper who has worked in the Hoosier state since my graduation from an Indiana high school in 1966, including one stint as an Indiana city cop and another working at an Indiana airport. [before the current airport security policies allowed undertrained federal airport security guards] I've also been a newspaperman resopnsible for courts, crime & cops coverage both as a newswriter and investigative columnist.
Nothing in the Indiana suptreme court's ruling overrides the United States Supreme Court's previous ruling and observations in >i>Plummer v. State and other related precedents noted in that decision:
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”
“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.
“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.
Nevertheless, I can see the writing on the wall and it includes descriptions of dead homeowners and their children, folloed by incidents of criminals who were once public servants hdangling from utility poles and burning alive in their patrol cars following IED detonations.
I plan to be far from Indiana when it begins to happen, and there's not much in Indiana that I'll miss.
Thank you for your input...
It is suffice to say that this court ruling will basically make it extremely unsafe for any Indianan whether you are on one side of the badge, or another...
And the criminal element is back there laughing their arses off at all of this...The heat will generally be off them because the attention of Law Enforcement will be wider spread, and their odds of getting caught, or at least tipped off better will be enhanced by this new initiative...
Archy, we have plenty of room left here in Texas...We’ll leave the light on for ya...It’s not too bad here...
Not relevant.
This was about entry, not arrest. The officer was attempting to enter the home of a woman who had called 911, and someone who was not domiciled there tried to block his entry. He wasn't making an illegal arrest, etc.
Please read the actual court document; don't just go by the wild claims being made.
In other words, the officer could have rightfully blown him away.
After all, the officer was called to the scene (so he had the right to be there) and was violently assaulted. Perhaps it would have been reasonable self-defense to shoot the guy with his firearm, not the Taser.