Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
Posted on 09/20/2011 12:41:36 PM PDT by FunkyZero
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday reaffirmed its earlier ruling in a controversial case involving unlawful police entry. The court granted a rehearing, then supplied a five-page opinion on its May 12 opinion that declared that Hoosiers no longer had a legal right to resist police officers who enter their home without a legal basis to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at theindychannel.com ...
... assuming it is the real cops coming in your door at 3AM, and not some thugs in rented uniform.
When we cannot understand an issue as simple as this, we give the state the right to do whatever they want.
The incredibly stupid War on Drugs has turned too much of the police forces in the US and internationally into the very kind of “standing army” — a militarized civil police force — the Founders despised.
Too be sure the founders rejected the concept of a professional standing army for a number of reasons (1) the tendency of a nation’s regent with such an army to use it prematurely and recklessly instead of pursuing equanimity and peace (2) such military expeditions and wars tended toward ruinous expense to the nation, but the last reason was closet to home with them, and probably the strongest reason at the time the Declaration was written. And that is (3) the use of the standing army to enforce abhorrent laws, seizures and taxes upon the citizens.
By the time the Constitution was ratified, that ideal of fierce rejection of a professional standing military had tempered, abated. It was clear that such a standing professional military was needed to quell major civil strive (tax rebellions), internal civil attacks of one state’s militia against another (the Wyoming Valley War), to protect and hold the frontier against foreign and Indian excursions and raids, and to protect the naval trade.
Still, the Founders would not have tolerated today’s negations of the natural rights of property and transit — a man’s home is his castle, and free men may travel freely unmolested by authorities when in that travel is made in good order — in ways that do not harm others or disturb the peace.
Agreed, the woman called 911, she was a resident of the home, and there is no 5th amendment issue.Ruuling was quite clear.Without the 911 call it would have been a very different matter:.......No entry without a warrant.
The Indiana statute specifically makes it a class I misdemeanor to commit a battery on a police officer who is engaged in the execution of the officer's OFFICIAL DUTIES. There is no Castle Doctrine defense in the statute so if you batter a police officer and the police officer can prove that at the time he was engaged in his OFFICIAL DUTIES, then you are going to be convicted. The common law "Castle Doctrine" does not apply.
Now if you could prove that the police officer was not engaged in his OFFICIAL duties, then the castle doctrine would apply and is not affected by this ruling.
The facts of this case are so bad, that there is simply no way the defendant was going to win. To even raise the "Castle Doctrine" on a case with these facts does nothing more than to draw unnecessary attention to the doctrine and thereby risk that the doctrine will be diluted merely by the fact that it forms the basis of this appeal.
Again, I have read the opinion of the court, and I am not in disagreement. There are remedies available to citizens for unlawful entry by police, but battery is not an option where the police officer is engaged in official duties.
In the facts of this case, there was no way for the defendant to show that the police were even acting illegally. There was no illegal entry. If you want to blame anyone for this ruling, blame the idiot attorney who raised the issue on appeal. Bad facts make bad law. The facts on this case couldn't have been worse.
If someone calls from inside your house requesting the police to arrive, then you have granted them permission to enter and to search the house for evidence of a crime. 911 is an EMERGENCY number. The police do not have time to stop by the courthouse and obtain a search warrant and the call itself is probable cause for entry and search.
So if you don't want the police to enter your home, make sure you don't have any phones in your house that someone might use to call 911.
And as I said earlier. If someone inside a home calls 911 to report a crime in progress, the police don't have the right to enter the home, they have an OBLIGATION to do so.
Wrong, that was what many of us had a problem with when it went through round one. Even if the officer was acting illegally and was off duty, if he identified himself as a police officer and kicked your door down and you resisted him you were guilty, period.
If you hired a lawyer afterword and proved he did it illegally you were still guilty of resisting him and not pardoned for your actions. Why this was such a big issue was this exact point, no matter what facts come out later, if you resisted you are guilty of a crime and remain guilty.
I believe what the justices are trying to say is "999 out of 1000 times it will be better for all if you let the search occur then take the matter up later with your lawyer in civil court". This very premise is what bothers us so much, let him violate you, submit to it, THEN seek damages when it's over. (at your expense I might add)
Great, have a shootout at 3:00, and your widow will learn if they are real cops by 4:00 AM.
>I read your dissertation, and quite frankly I think you have jumped the one winged shark.
So then, under what power can they alter the State’s own Constitution? They cannot, this sort of overreach by an official has a name: malfeasance.
>he Indiana statute specifically makes it a class I misdemeanor to commit a battery on a police officer who is engaged in the execution of the officer’s OFFICIAL DUTIES. There is no Castle Doctrine defense in the statute so if you batter a police officer and the police officer can prove that at the time he was engaged in his OFFICIAL DUTIES, then you are going to be convicted. The common law “Castle Doctrine” does not apply.
That is wholly irrelevant to the issue at hand: that the court is either a) amending the State’s Constitution, or b) violating the US Constitution which constrains even State’s judges.
(And even if it WERE at hand, how can ILLEGAL ENTRY be a part of a police officer’s OFFICIAL DUTIES? Or are you going to tell me that “just following orders” is an acceptable legal defense?)
>Now if you could prove that the police officer was not engaged in his OFFICIAL duties, then the castle doctrine would apply and is not affected by this ruling.
See the above.
>The facts of this case are so bad, that there is simply no way the defendant was going to win. To even raise the “Castle Doctrine” on a case with these facts does nothing more than to draw unnecessary attention to the doctrine and thereby risk that the doctrine will be diluted merely by the fact that it forms the basis of this appeal.
Where are you getting this? I NEVER brought Castle Doctrine into play, did I? Furthermore, I explicitly said that THE CASE is not the problem here, the [Supreme Court’s] RULING is.
>There are remedies available to citizens for unlawful entry by police, but battery is not an option where the police officer is engaged in official duties.
That is not what the court said; the court said that EVEN IF IT IS AN UNLAWFUL ENTRY there is no right for the citizen to defend himself... that is a BIG difference.
>If you want to blame anyone for this ruling, blame the idiot attorney who raised the issue on appeal. Bad facts make bad law. The facts on this case couldn’t have been worse.
Actually that’s not even an option: the attorney’s appeal could have been taken care of if the Supreme Court had simply stated that a) the woman had indeed called the police, and b) was evicting the man (thereby denying him the ability to legitimately refuse). Wham, bam, simple and closed. But that is NOT what the supreme Court did, is it?
or, following your idea, and get shot and killed that night!
>If someone calls from inside your house requesting the police to arrive, then you have granted them permission to enter and to search the house for evidence of a crime.
Not necessarily true; a vandal could break into your home and call the police from there, in which case you have not given any sort of permission.
LOL!!!!!
Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen.
BTW if a vandal breaks into my house and calls 911 to report himself, the police have my implied permission to shoot the B@$+@rd!
I'll pay to clean the rug.
You laugh, but...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/home-intruder-calls-911-homeowner-caught-showering/story?id=13084609
I guess you didn't read the Supreme Court's opinion. The SC said that if the officer is acting in his official duties, then the Castle Doctrine is not a defense to battery. If he is off duty or doing something illegally, then he would not be acting in his official duties and you can shoot him (if the circumstances permit).
This holding only applies to police officers who are acting in their official capacity and performing official duties. If they are not in their official capacity, you can batter them to your heart's content.
84% no.
>I guess you didn’t read the Supreme Court’s opinion. The SC said that if the officer is acting in his official duties, then the Castle Doctrine is not a defense to battery.
>If he is off duty or doing something illegally, then he would not be acting in his official duties and you can shoot him (if the circumstances permit).
That’s certainly NOT what the original opinion said, it said: “we hold that Indiana [sic] the right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into a home is no longer recognized under Indiana law.”
That means even if he is off-duty, or acting in a blatantly illegal manner, that the court will not recognize your right to resist.
They are saying that a police officer can now bust down your door and rape your wife in front of your very eyes and YOU CANNOT LEGALLY RESIST HIM. Period.
This is the inescapable conclusion of the declaration that they made that “THE RIGHT TO REASONABLY RESIST AN UNLAWFUL POLICE ENTRY INTO A HOME IS NO LONGER RECOGNIZED UNDER INDIANA LAW.”
The ruling itself is available here:
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/new/barnes.pdf
Can’t C&P text from the file, but it specifically says that all the courts have agreed the police DID have a legal right to entry. Also says the decision does not alter the law about when it is or is not legal to enter - only that a person doesn’t have an unqualified right to defend his home against the legal entry of police.
The ruling is only 5 pages...worth reading before folks comment.
Another point to make is that it can never be the duty of a public official to commit a crime.
The question of whether or not the entry is "legal" is, in fact irrelevant as long as the police are acting in their official capacity. The Supreme Court clearly made the distinction that as long as the police are acting in their "official capacity", the homeowner does not have the defense of the Castle Doctrine to any battery upon a police officer. However if the police officer is NOT acting in his official capacity, then the homeowner is entitled to use the Castle Doctrine to protect his home.
The key element (which you seem intent upon ignoring) is that the police must be acting in their official capacity in order to override the castle doctrine.
I do believe you will find this to be the case in 50 out of 50 states. I doubt very seriously if there is a court in America that would give a homeowner or occupant the right to violently resist police officers who are acting in their official capacity even if it is later determined that the entry was not legal.
Can you show me a single jurisdiction that allows homeowners to batter police officers simply because their warrants are later determined to be improper or their entry was deemed invalid as not being valid exigent circumstances?
>Can you show me a single jurisdiction that allows homeowners to batter police officers simply because their warrants are later determined to be improper or their entry was deemed invalid as not being valid exigent circumstances
You ignore all the places wherein the police, or other “LEOs,” are violating due process because they DON’T HAVE WARRANTS. {TSA springs immediately to mind.}
What you propose is little less than the validation of police-actions by reason that the police acted, a very untenable position to take in a free country... and an impossible one not to take under a despot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.