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Posted on 05/14/2011 3:32:09 AM PDT by markomalley
People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law.
The court issued its 3-2 ruling on Thursday, contending that allowing residents to resist officers who enter their homes without any right would increase the risk of violent confrontation. If police enter a home illegally, the courts are the proper place to protest it, Justice Steven David said.
"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."
Justices Robert Rucker and Brent Dickson strongly dissented, saying the ruling runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, The Times of Munster reported.
"In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally -- that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances," Rucker said.
Both dissenting justices suggested they would have supported the ruling if the court had limited its scope to stripping the right to resist officers who enter homes illegally in cases where they suspect domestic violence is being committed.
But Dickson said, "The wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Oh wait....you’re defending Osama Bin Laden?????? What a friggin’ douchebag.
Guns? What do you need guns for? You’re not allowed to shoot them. Just give them to those nice policemen emptying your dresser drawers.
WE THE PEOPLE have escalated the violence and become unworthy of our 4th Amendment Rights.
*(”Seal Team Six/6/VI etc.” is the registered property of Disney)
They were just cleaning out the closet and getting rid of the dusty old Amendments we don’t need any more. When’s the last time you used the Fourth one? Most of us have never used it and never will. Yet there are packrats clinging to it like it’s as valuable as the one that secures the right to kill unborn babies.
If the judges were honest about the real reason for their ruling, their opinion would have read something like that.
I do not grant the government that right, period.
lol. i am sure they are really not concerned about what you or I think. Good luck with that thinking. I don’t think you or I have any reason to believe that they would do this anyway. Typically this is done in crime driven neighborhoods or where a person did something bad in the household. Yes there is that one doom and gloom story about once or twice a year where the police went to the wrong home but really this is not a big deal unless you are guilty about something.
Me too.
Search warrant or warrantless raids in the middle of the night should be out outlawed except to the extent where public safety is at stake. What is wrong with coming to the door in the daylight, announcing your presence to serve or to enter and giving the homeowner the curtesy of opening the door. No, we have 11PM or 4AM gestapo styled raids with armies of swat officers storming into houses to find marijuana plants. I fail to see where that is a public safety problem. Now if the police can make a case some crazed murderer or armed drug lord is at a specific location, bring on the heavy artillery but not for general crimes or where safety of the public is not a concern.
There was a situation not far from where I live wherein the county swat/hit squad went out on a 5AM, in the winter, raid on a drug dealer...crime...sold less than 5 oxycodone tablets to an informant. She was a wheel chair bound almost 50yo woman living alone. In true facist style, there was door knock, most people are asleep at that hour, immediately followed by a battering ram knock down of her door. She actually had a cap and ball relic of a gun which she reached for, a cap and ball relic, and was blasted off her bed with a barage of 40 cal and 12 gauge fire. This so incensed me, a retired LEO, I wrote to the local authorities saying these clowns should be fired, sued, and put in jail. The upshot, they were obsolved of any criminal actions as she had a gun! Forget the nonsence that pushed her to the ridicules brink of picking up a relic gun while roused from sleep in the dark living alone and not mobile.
I’ve heard that a CZ52 is a pistol that will shoot through any body armor.
I truly understand that LEO’s have to protect themselves and they deal with less than honest people. That being said, I find it now common for law abiding citizens to fear the police. No, I’m not talking about running a red light and knowing you are going to get a ticket. I am talking about true fear for their safety, family safety and their rights as citizens. None of this is good. When I was growing up, your parents wrote a check to the Police Benevolence Society or similar fund. You were taught as a child that the police do a dangerous job to protect YOU. You referred to them as Sir/Mam or Officer due to respect not fear. Essentially, if you were law abiding, then you were on their “side” and they “yours”. Not anymore. I don’t know if this is a generation issue or what? However, LENF image and law abiding citizens are not on the same page anymore. IMHO
Officer safety be damned. They're paid to take those risks and had better operate in light of them. "Officer safety" has become more an excuse for ridiculous union work rules and strained justification for heavy-handed SWAT tactics than is has to do with reality.
Thank you, markomalley, for posting the actual court ruling.
When you read the entire case and what happened, it becomes clear that the only questions that should have been considered is whether or not and “unlawful entry attempt took place”, and whether or not the right to defend against “unlawful” entry applied in this case.
Instead, the court unbelievably overstepped its bounds by ruling that no such right even exists.
As to the “unlawful” entry charge by the defendant, I don’t know, but according to the facts in the case, a woman who lived in the apartment called 911 asking for assistance as she was fearful she might be harmed by her husband/boyfriend.
Police arrived, questioned the husband/boyfriend outside of the apartment. He told them to get lost. He returns to the apartment, police follow and ask to be able to enter and investigate the 911 call - presumably to talk with the woman.
At this point I don’t know why she did not ask the officers to come in, but according to the case report, she never actually asked them in, even though she was standing behind her husband/boyfriend at the door. She told the boyfriend to let them in, but, she never directly asked the police to do so.
Now, I may be wrong on this, but if there reasonable evidence that a crime is taking place in a home/apartment at that very moment (i.e. murder, assault, robbery, etc.) - is it not permissable for the police to gain entry without a warrant at that moment?
Now, I’m not saying that the circumstances described in the court docs on this particular case supports the police entering without a warrant. It is pretty clear that an assault was NOT taking place at the time the police were at the door.
My point is these are the only questions which should have been decided upon by the court - was the defendant resisting an “unlawful” entry attempt? Did the police enter the residence unlawfully or lawfully? Was there an assault taking place at that moment? Did the circumstances merit the police to enter without a warrant? Did the right to resist unlawful entry apply in this case?
Those are the questions to be dealt with - not just ruling that the right to resist unlawful enty doesn’t exist. This needs to be overturned and the judges removed from office. (duh!).
“...I am 46 years old and never had the police illegally enter my home...”
Yet. Because they haven’t found an excuse yet.
But other people HAVE had this happen.
I think our attitude should ALWAYS be - “You F*** with one of us, you’ll deal with ALL of us eventually” when it comes to the jackboot.
When it becomes personal, and there’s a strong chance that THEY won’t be going home at the end of the day, every single time, it’ll stop.
Read Alexander Solzhenitsen.
The police are not your friend,they are agents of the State.Many situations are worsened by the arrival of the police.My encounters of the last year with the police are examples:after being struck head-on and painfully exiting my car,the arriving officer badgered me as having caused the wreck,until multiple witnesses told her the other driver clearly ran the red light. The second incident was being pulled over for a burned out(unknown to me) license plate lamp.When the officer knocked on my passenger side window and demanded my license my question was what is this about?He said you will be told after I have your driver license !I think my crime was driving an older vehicle carefully at the speed limit after midnight.If you drive over the posted limit you can be stopped for excess speed and if you do obey the posted limit it is viewed as if you have something to hide because most drivers do exceed the posted limit by 5 to 10 mph.The flaming license plates are reflective anyway so easily read when the lights of any car hit it. Oddly I discovered the local Walmart was out of license plate lamps the next day. And I know of a domestic situation where one department did try to handle things calmly but the county sherrif department swept in with multiple cars and a half-dozen officers surrounded an empty, locked pickup truck ;just an idiot circus totally un-needed. SWAT ,no knock raids,and the black uniform militarization of the former peace officers are no good. I abhor this Indiana Supreme Court ruling.
“I abhor this Indiana Supreme Court ruling”
As do I. I am surprised that it occurred in Indiana as well. I figured Mass, California, or MD would pull this type of thing but Indiana surprised me. How you were treated especially after being hurt is unexcusable. I hope you made a quick recovery. The thought of being hurt and then hassled by someone with a gun and the power to taze you/arrest you is just mind boggling to me.
So, the jerk-off judges would presumably also say that if a cop were going to unlawfully EXECUTE you, you should submit, and let your heirs take it to court (back to the same jerk judges again!)rather than resist? This “opinion” is UNAMERICAN!!
Thanks.I believe only the presence of the EMTs at my side wanting to take me to the hospital restrained the officer from being even more aggressive.Anyone is likely to be a little dis-oriented after having another car smash into yours at high speed,then the airbag in the face,and the car filled with smoke.Still strapped in with smoke swirling around,I briefly feared burning to death!Fumbling frantically with the seat belt,and then the slightly jammed door ,I escaped ,and realized later it was only the smoke from the airbag,not a fire.My car ended up a foot shorter than factory size.
The volunteer EMTs and firefighters are the best people in the community.
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