In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.
“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.”
I don’t know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don’t know how you were inverted
no one alerted you
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Wow. That is sick.
They’re gonna need more than a stun gun to call on houses if they keep this kind of thing up.
No kidding. Better body armor, too. If cops in Indiana are like most cops, then their body armor leaves head, limbs, and abdomen exposed.
If I were a cop, I wouldn’t be happy with Colonel David’s ruling, assuming that it has been accurately described here. A cop could be commanded to enter a house under very dubious circumstances and without just cause and have to make the following choice: Do I risk getting shot by someone who is smart enough not to be a doormat for the police, or do I risk being accused of insubordination for refusing to enter?
Fyi, Wikipedia alleges that this is the perp, Steven David.
I think this is a good ruling, as long as we can reverse the situation and have it apply equally, as my reworded version shows:
Actually, I take back what I said; the reverse should apply, but not the actual ruling, as government is the servant of citizens, and thus has fewer allowances. But the reality now is that a government servant illegally entering someone’s home doesn’t allow for the homeowner to resist entry, yet a citizen illegally entering a government building can be legally resisted with force.
Or even loitering outside. “Trespassing” on public property. The internet is replete with examples of this.
Being from this state, I’m disappointed and hope the legislature will correct this.
Good luck with that. The state is generally poor at self-restraint
Imagine the poor citizen who hears something go boom in the night. If he reaches for the trusty .45, might he find himself prosecuted for threatening a licensed home invader? If he fails to reach for it, might he find himself victim of unlicensed home invaders? Tricky, tricky. The court just shifted the uncertainty to some poor fellow at home instead of the trained polizei. With no-knock warrants all rage, it’s a warrant to kill coupled with a fatwa on the hapless citizen who reacts as any human being would. Your home is not your castle.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/87937.html
Informed jury action is, of course, the answer to this type government nonsense.
A split 3-2 decision by Indiana’s most supreme & august government judges is overwhelming prima facie evidence that a “reasonable doubt” clearly exists as to the validity & meaning of this law/ruling…. these learned, costumed judges can’t even agree on what it means among themselves.
Of course then, no Indiana defendant could be honestly convicted of resisting unlawful entry by the police– because the standard for conviction is ‘guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’ … both for the defendant’s actions and the legality the specific statutes he was indicted under.
It should be obvious common sense for any law or regulation… if the judges involved (at any level) cannot unanimously agree on the clear meaning & application of that law — then average citizens cannot reasonably be expected to understand it either, nor be prosecuted under vague or confusing laws. Unfortunately, courts are run solely by government judges, prosecutors and police… common sense & justice are rare commodities there.
Naturally, jurors are constitutionally free to make their own independent judgments about laws and defendants… and need not reference previous judicial history. However, jury trials are rare in American courts — the highly corrupt practice of plea-bargaining is the primary method of judicial prosecution in today’s America.
… no I don’t think so.
But that’s not how it works, of course.
I am not a lawyer, but I really doubt that juries are free to pick and choose which laws they feel are valid. They decide on the guilt, not whether or not laws are legit.
Juries are completely free to nullify a law they believe is unjust. In a criminal action, the state is without recourse to seek a judgment not withstanding the jury verdict. If the the jury decides that all the elements of the “crime” have been proven, but that they don’t believe anything is wrong with the conduct, they are free to return an acquittal, and there is no inquiry as to why.
Defense attorneys are of course prohibited from informing a jury of this in most states, and the SCOTUS has held that a defendant does not have the right to inform the jury of their power to nullify if the trial court chooses not to allow it.
It’s there, but it’s very, very weak protection.
“I am not a lawyer, but I really doubt that juries are free to pick and choose which laws they feel are valid. They decide on the guilt, not whether or not laws are legit.”
That’s what a judge or DA will say, but it’s not at all consistent with our history as a nation.
I never thought I’d read anything that made any state’s government sound worse than California’s. Thanks, Mises.org!
Wow.
It is hard to comprehend the utter depravity of those “justices” aligned with the majority on this opinion.
U.S. Police State Target (rock music video) Released
Anti U.S. Police State Musician/activist, Scott Huminski, releases his 6th rock video with his band Scott X and the Constitution Commandos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niLKRjLo4cA
Well…..
This has been the greatest reason yet to leave my state for New Hampshire.
Anyone notice this little beauty from the end of the article…
“This is the second major Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week involving police entry into a home.
On Tuesday, the court said police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. Prior to that ruling, police serving a warrant would have to obtain a judge’s permission to enter without knocking. ”
I guess property taxes gives government the impression that they are the true owners of all homes and can thus do whatever they want.
Looks like it’s time for Indiana to adopt laws giving citizens the right to protect their property. We have it in Alabama and, while it won’t keep you from facing a grand jury, it certainly enforces the citizens’ rights to protect themselves, their homes, their property from intrusion from any unwarranted entry.
$5 says that by the end of the year there will be a news story of someone impersonating a police officer and trying to enter a stranger’s house.
By the end of the year? This is old news, sir!
“Between 2005 and 2008, seven counties in Texas were terrorized by a gang that carried out a series of home invasion robberies while dressed in SWAT attire and packing high-performance weaponry. The robbers would burst into a targeted home shouting “Search warrant!” The victims would be beaten and zip-cuffed at gunpoint, and then the raiders would help themselves to anything of value they could find.”
http://lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w212.html
We will soon be coming up to the aniversary of the signing of Magna Carta! Perhaps you could start an unofficial Magna Carta March, or awards ceremony to law-repealers, or something?
This court opinion was written so broadly, as to allow the police to barge into any home for whatever reason. The details are thin, but if this opinion had been strictly constructed in cases of domestic abuse, where the alleged had used violence or the threat of violence on the street, and had then retreated into his home it would be understandable, but this over-the-top More evidence that the polizeistaat is growing in strength, and the Volksgerichtshof “people’s court“ are on there way at the state level.
@sadly: “I guess property taxes gives government the impression that they are the true owners of all homes and can thus do whatever they want.” Well, why shouldn’t property taxes give government that impression? It seems to me that the one who regularly collects a monetary fee from the residents of an abode with the aid of threatened eviction is the owner.
Furthermore, we are crying over spilt milk. Ask virtually any judge or lawyer and they will tell you the common law doesn’t exist anymore having been replaced by legislation and rules of courts.
I think the agenda there is to put cops in danger as cannon fodder, all for an upcoming push toward “necessary gun control laws.”
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