Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.
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.”
The court’s decision stems from a Vanderburgh County case in which police were called to investigate a husband and wife arguing outside their apartment.
When the couple went back inside their apartment, the husband told police they were not needed and blocked the doorway so they could not enter. When an officer entered anyway, the husband shoved the officer against a wall. A second officer then used a stun gun on the husband and arrested him. Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, said the court’s decision is consistent with the idea of preventing violence. Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, dissented from the ruling, saying the court’s decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Every day, it gets a little worse.
I stand corrected. These guys came in before Bayh was governor, and judges in Indiana are not appointed by the governor. They pick a name from a list of three prepared by lawyers.
Is there a way to connect this to Gingrich?
Unbelieveable!
This is going to come under the “as a practical matter” heading. Allowing use of force by the occupant makes the potential of violence far greater for both police and citizen. If the police enter illegally or by mistake then you have a court system for a remedy, not street justice. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fringe element, idiot.
Wow. So not to turn this into a law school class, but – this case aside – the Fourth amendment proscribes no unreasonable searches and seizures absent BOTH probable cause AND a warrant.
If you don’t have a warrant, you need what are called “exigent circumstances”, which are (sadly) myriad – but it does include ongoing emergencies (such as someone getting beaten up).
[Michael York voice]
“There is NO Sanctuary”
Translation:
“The 4th Amendment no longer has any place in our “Great Society” and we hereby jettison it by judicial fiat because we no longer even care to make a pretense of caring what the Constitution or Bill of Rights actually says or means.”
AKA:
“You have nor Rights, Slave. Now get back to the Slave Pits!”
Looking forward to the day when I have to keep a few soldiers in the spare bedroom.
@#17 “The conservative viewpoint has always been one of the force of law and military trumps the right of the masses” – common Left misconception linking general support for military and law enforcement to claim that Right in general prefers any of those vs. individual rights. The first fundamental issue on the Right is that of individual freedom. Or is it Left who fights for 2nd Amendment, freedom of speech and related. Progressive Right (and Left), ex. Bush, Obama,… is the group placing collective “right” over individual and hence Patriot Act, Health Care and such.
@#25 “If the police enter illegally or by mistake then you have a court system for a remedy, not street justice. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fringe element, idiot.” – Founders specifically stated that 2nd Amendment is there to protect ordinary citizens from overbearing Government. This is not street justice. No one has the right to break in your house. You have Constitutional right to fight such intrusion. PARTICULARLY when it is Government who is intruding. Government who is PARTICULARLY and FUNDAMENTALLY banned from doing so by the Constitution. That is not fringe. Problem is that most people assume that somehow Government is always right and we need to obey whatever nonsense they throw at us only to fight it in legal system later. Not the intent of the country founders, not the intent of the Constitution. Just result of enslaved mentality.
#4 who you call’n albedo?
I’ll say this as an ex-cop. If you know that a cop is in your housing illegally, SHOOT HIM/THEM!
I mean really truly unlawfully making entry into your domain, like he’s kicked in your door and made a mad dash to your TV or computer (this ruling states they can be robbing you blind, admit it to your face and you can’t do shit) SHOOT HIM!
#1 I don’t think the rich are even going to have any rights. The deal I heard Google being offered today sounds like a nice simple shake down of the sort that might be put forward by a mob boss; old fashioned extortion by the government of one the nations richest businesses to get the money needed to operate by any means legal or otherwise.
I’m sure Dallas can excuse it no doubt on the grounds that Google is rich and needs to pay its fair share. Only thing is it won’t stay rich getting hits like this and while the extortionist may start at the top once this sort of thing is accepted they’ll work their way to down to the poorest of poor.
May God bless and keep you and have a great weekend in America where you need to fear the government as much as the mob.
Reform the US Justice System.
Surf to Senator James Webb of Virginia’s web page.
Capture the URL, and copy to clipboard memory.
Then google for your own senators’ contact web pages and ask them to support Webb’s reform program.
Most Seriously.
Lay them off. Do it before you wish you had.
#30, your comments deserve some explanation.
go ahead, explain.
You waited too long, slaves.
This incident illustrates how necessary the use of split second good judgement is in the day to day work of law enforcement. Good judgement starts with good people and they are often in short supply. Even good people can make bad decisions, just as bad people can make good decisions. The toughest desisions a law enforcement officer has to make, as well as the greatest danger they face often involve domestic violence situations.
I only open my door to friends and family. Anyone else, get lost, or my guns pointed at you. I will not live on my knees.
The way this story is written implies that any law enforcement officer may enter any home in Indiana for any reason, or for no reason at all, and no one may resist in any way. Indiana politics can get very, very dirty, and this just adds a lot of possibilities to the bag of dirty tricks available. It doesn’t require much imagination to come up with numerous nightmare scenarios.
Just a couple, off the top of my head:
* The home of someone running for sheriff being constantly “visited” by the incumbent’s deputies.
* Or anyone running against any incumbent unable to sleep because of constant such “visits” day and night.
* House-to-house sweeps looking for (fill in the blank) — illegals, drug paraphernalia, weapons, subversive literature, cash, or just whatever they can find. Maybe nothing they find would stand up in court, but just think of all the people they could tase and arrest for resisting!
If ‘we, the people’ are going to retain any of the right granted us in the Bill of Rights, we need to get rid of judges like that without hesitation. If we sit back and let shit like that go unanswered, we deserve the dregs.
It sure looks from a albeit short distance, that, the US is slipping alarmingly fast into a police state. Canada has always had a “guilty until proven innocent” thing going on and the US system of rights was one of the few things I envied about the US. Maybe it just seems worse than it is, illegal wiretaps, tsa shakedowns and such, but it would be a shame to see your finest achievement go for shit.
C’mon folks. The cops wanted to hear from the wife that she was alright. The angry husband’s “word” should not suffice.
Shoving a cop gets you arrested whether in your house or not.
If the cops go through the trouble of ditching their doughnuts to go investigate a domestic disturbance, let them investigate. Because if the cops leave when the husband says “everything is fine, go away”, and the wife is already dead or dies 20 mins later, they’ll have some s’plaining to do.