Posted on 06/12/2012 4:31:20 AM PDT by Rennes Templar
Police officers in Indiana are upset over a new law allowing residents to use deadly force against public servants, including law enforcement officers, who unlawfully enter their homes. It was signed by Republican Governor Mitch Daniels in March.
The first of its kind in the United States, the law was adopted after the state Supreme Court went too far in one of its rulings last year, according to supporters. The case in question involved a man who assaulted an officer during a domestic violence call. The court ruled that there was “no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”
The National Rifle Association lobbied for the new law, arguing that the court decision had legalized police to commit unjustified entries.
Tim Downs, president of the Indiana State Fraternal Order of Police, which opposed the legislation, said the law could open the way for people who are under the influence or emotionally distressed to attack officers in their homes.
“It’s just a recipe for disaster,” Downs told Bloomberg. “It just puts a bounty on our heads.”
This is truly a surprise for Daniels. He has always been a borderline statist.
Maybe he has seen the light?
“All of us have a constitutional right to call the cops. People who interfere with that right are in violation of our rights and can be dealt with harshly.”
That sounds like the “constitutional right to healthcare” and the “constitutional right to welfare money”.
In other words, it isn’t there.
Whach you mean boyah?
Do you realize what the term "call" really means? Have we forgotten already?
It is a self-evident truth that a person has a right to "call" the cops!
This is showboating for Daniels.
Well said.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But as a newspaperman, I've covered courts n' cops for 30+ years and have served as a legal researcher for both prosecution and defence attorneys.
Accordingly, my observation of other USSC and Federal District court cases that were not reviewed by the Supremes leads me to believe otherwise.
“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.?
“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.
“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).
Several state constitutions have some pretty clear-cut references in their descriptions of the rights of the citizens of those states as well. “Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100). “One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910). “Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority. Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all ... it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court. As for grounds for arrest: “The carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person, is not a breach of the peace. Nor does such an act of itself, lead to a breach of the peace.” (Wharton’s Criminal and Civil Procedure, 12th Ed., Vol.2: Judy v. Lashley, 5 W. Va. 628, 41 S.E. 197)
There ought to be no protection for law officers that are breaking the law. Why do they get to be protected if they are breaking the law?
We don’t live in CSI NCIS The Closer Cold Case Criminal Minds world where police don’t need warrants and damn the law. Get the freaking warrants. Actually tail and surveil. Do the work.
Well stated.
Color of law will not protect criminal acts if that criminal is wearing a badge. Criminal acts are criminal acts regardless of who causes them. It’s worse when a law officer commits them because it undermines the public faith in all who wear a badge.
You sound like a liberal who doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “constituitonal right”.
Read what’s actually in the Constitution without making up “rights” as a liberal does.
If the cops don’t do anything WRONG, then they have nothing to worry about!
“Maybe he has seen the light?”
A lot of folks are starting to see the light, thanks to the darkness surrounding Obama. That’s one positive thing he has contributed.
They’re in no more danger when unlawfully raiding someone’s home than they were before the law went into effect.
And they’re in no more danger lawfully entering someone’s home than if the law didn’t exist.
What the law does is protect the citizens should it happen that they shoot an officer who is illegally entering their home who they have no reason to believe is not a criminal. When someone is kicking in your door, people react. Shoot first and ask questions later.
If the police don’t go kicking in people’s doors, they likely won’t be mistaken for an armed robber/rapist and likely won’t be shot.
I don’t see people standing there giving a criminal a chance by checking to see if it’s a LEO first before they shoot. It is not realistic for your average citizen to conclude that the intruder is LE and to check before shooting simply because LEO’s should NOT be kicking in doors and illegally entering private property.
If they behaved themselves, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Yep, that was my impression when we had a break in about 2 minutes from the police office.
I called when I had the situation under control, and the cops still didn’t get there fast enough to catch the perp.
Course the perp was running rather fast after I charged him. Dropped his crowbar, pissed his pants.
I was about to post exactly the same statutes. Indiana's not the first...
It hasn't been a problem in Texas -- LEOs are taught it in recruit training (as I was, 40 years ago), and it keeps everyone reasonably honest and on their toes.
I'm an ex-cop, ex-prosecutor, ex-judge, and I believe this is good law. Good for Indiana!
Uh, dude, it only changes the status of what may be done to you while you're ILLEGALLY ENTERING a house. Were you planning on committing ILLEGAL ENTRIES? If not, you have nothing to worry about [ / statist mode, except in this case it actually DOES apply ]
And if a cop gets killed during what turns out to be an illegal entry, charge the other cops under the felony murder rule.
BTTT
This law may become very popular if The One gets a second term.
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