Indiana Supreme Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home (police state trods on)

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_ec169697-a19e-525f-a532-81b3df229697.html


"INDIANAPOLIS | 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.”


David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system.............................."


snip

This just took a giant shit all over one of the reasons we broke away from the UK in the first place.

What would the "proper" resistance be to law enforcement duly identifying itself as the same?

You lay down on the ground with your hands clasped behind your head (if you want to survive).

The rest is sorted out later. Including any evidence against you taken from the scene.

Sorry, dude, but the only way evil triumphs is if the good do nothing.

Thomas Jefferson

And a society full of gun toters is a big what if.

Which may seem to give the shoot first crowd the setback it deserves.

But everyone hopes that you can put the gun down because your value system is grievously impaired.

law tradition courts since the Magna Carta. Precident and all that.

which is the same system that produced this ruling. What are the chances of justice being done then, eh?

because the courts would do the right thing. glad I didn't hold my breath.

Castle laws apply to unwarranted police invasions, too.

You've got to shoot and kill an essentially-unlimited
number of them and they only need to shoot and kill you.

No matter how bad your odds in court might be, they're
still better than your odds up against the police.

Tesha

:sarcasm:



Is anybody really surprised by this?

clicking on the link and reading the details of the case?

Did DU's shoot-first, ask-questions-later brigade just strike again?

The two dissenting judges, whose opinions you apparently did not read, were exactly right. Too bad only two of them understand the danger of throwing away our rights.

I read the comments from the dissenting justices.

this is really pointless.

Duh.

the relevant details of the case?

which seems pretty standard here.

needs to be taken into consideration. At the very least, he should have summarized the detail.

the wife was in no physical danger.

Did you?

dude.

That's all I'm asking.

Or could not reasonably be expected to be.

circumstances.

Once I read the details presented in the article, it didn't seem as extreme as presented by those screaming "police state!", like the OP.

However, the case seems to presuppose that the officer's entry was illegal. If the cop had reasonable cause to think the woman would be in danger, wouldn't it then be a legal entry? (It seems like common sense, but maybe the law differs?)

at least one of the dissenting justices appears to indicate he would have sided with the majority if they had confined their holding to domestic violence cases"

perhaps you should read the decision.

I was not quoting the article.

defense is based on things not in that self-same article.

it's called an inference, dude.

Do you honestly think you know enough about the case to draw conclusions based upon a short article?

Why did the dissenting justices indicate they would have sided with the majority if the holding had been confined to domestic violence cases?

are you assuming others did not? What are you basing this accusation against DUers on? I have told you now several times, in response to your false accusation that I did not read it, that not only did I read it, I agreed with the dissenting opinion.

Now, maybe you should go read it yourself. Why did you ask ME to summarize the dissenting opinion for you? Click the link, it takes a second, then scroll down if you don't want to bother with the details of the particular case, which I did btw, and you will find the dissenting opinion.

Knowing DUers as I do, I assumed that most DUers in this thread have already done that.

to see if you actually read it.

This is pointless.

Pointless? It was way more than pointless, it was arrogant, wrong, and an insult to everyone in this thread.

I have zero interest in discussing this with you.

:rofl:

Yes the disenting judges MAY have agreed if the ruling had been limited specifically to the immediate aftermath of a DV callout.

The also made it equally clear that they DID NOT agree with the general ruling that no person may impede a police officer entering private property, even when that officer is clearly acting outside the law.

You do realise that this sets a precedent for disallowing any member of the public to intercede or interfere in ANY situation where a police officer may be acting outside the law no matter how clearly illegal his actions might be? Unrealistic as the situation might be, a cop could go on a shooting spree and whatever punishement eventually befell him, theoretically any civilian who attempted to interced would be breaking the law to do so.


What next? Oh you DIDN'T express your objections at the time. Well I'm sorry sir, under those circumstances the assumption must be that you acceded to his entry. ALL EVIDENCE COLLECTED IS FULLY ADMISSIBLE.

And if you do express you objection, too many cops are wont to view that as "resisting arrest".

How soon before someone in plain clothes does this and gets himself killed, or kills someone else?

How soon before home invaders piggyback themselves on this with a tin badge or just the word "police" to get themselves throught the door and it closed behind them?

Oh and don't think there's any avoiding unpleasantness, by allowing him entry to "talk things over and sort them out amicably". Even at the best of times when you invite a cop into your home, it's about the same as inviting in a vampire. He has almost total freedom to act as he pleases and your options for stopping him are extremely limited.

This ruling says you have NO OPTIONS WHATSOEVER to prevent the entry of a police officer into your home under any circumstances.

You may seek redress after the fact, but there's cold fucking comfort in an official reprimand once your neighbours have seen 5 units parked out front and your computers being taken away. (We ALL know what THAT means dont' we?)

And that my friend is all a cop who crosses your threshold and "the line" at the same time has to do. Call in enough mates to make it look like something big, and carry your computer and a couple of photo alubums to the kerb. If fact do this a few times, enough for it to become "common knowledge", and all it will take is a "significant look" in the direction of a computer to convince more easily cowed homeowners to retroactively "consent" to the unlawful entry.

I can think of so many ways this could be abused under a "straight as a die" legal system. Under a system that produces a self serving rulings like this, the potential for abuse is close to limitless.


Just about to hit "post" and this too occured to me. Cops are already more than a little notorious for cooking the books in their favour when they're in the wrong. This ruling gives them tacit approval to risk puttting themselves in the wrong and argue specifics later. Human nature being what it is, this can only lead to more "book cooking" to avoid due and just return for wrongful actions.

You're focusing on the case instead of the ruling. Yes, in the case that violence is suspected, I agree that police entry is warranted.

I sure as shit do NOT agree that police should be able to enter your house for any damn reason or no reason at all!! Sabrina is not the one in the wrong here.

you really shouldn't make assumptions.

at the end. it is called a QUESTION MARK.

and, seriously, you are now long past tedious

"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."

Do you agree with this ruling? Why?

Why is it so difficult to state your opinion clearly?

is a statement disguised as a question.

Questions sound like this: "Do you have a problem with the ruling?" I'm not playing your games.

form YOU find acceptable, but then, you are not my editor, so please understand when I say ....

pre-emptively answering it, makes it a loaded question.

I'm kinda surprised you admitted to game-playing, though.

your posts read as if you essentially agree with the decision. What I am appalled by, as are others on the thread, is the ruling. I doubt that most here would dispute the entry based on that case. That's not what the ruling was. The decision broadened it to include any entry by the policy at any time, not when violence was suspected. The case here is almost immaterial.

What you're pretty much saying here, whether you intend to or not, is that based on the detail you keep pointing out (the case), the ruling is okay.

Maybe people should not read things into what I write.

What is your opinion of the ruling?

It sounds, from that quote, as though the judge was saying police no longer need exigent circumstances (someone in distress, obvious criminal activity, or suspicion of evidence destruction, for example).

If my interpretation is correct, this is a terrifying ruling.

parts of the Constitution are negotiable. As soon as we started accepting the Bush doctrine and making excuses like 'we are at war' etc. which I saw a lot of this week, we have given them permission to keep chipping away at our rights.

But the GWOT is more important than the Constitution.

Not surprised, there will lots more rulings like this because people refuse to stand up when it begins.

read the details of the case either.

I read it and agree with the two dissenting judges Justice Robert Rucker and Justice Brent Dickson

I don't think you did.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

(please note that 2 of the justices dissented, saying the ruling was too broad.)

and, as a matter of curiousity, do you agree with the previous ruling this week that was mentioned?

I don't draw conclusions from a short article.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system.............................."

so, in the meantime, the innocent person must fork over huge bucks in bail and other legal fees. .

except in the here in Denver when developmentally challenged man was gunned down in his home because he was sitting up in bed an was trying to put down a soda can as the cops burst through his door in a raid on THE WRONG HOUSE. He wasn't trying to resist, he was startled awake in his bed. I don't think he is going to have much of a chance to 'protest' his situation.

Or the other guy here who was shot dead in his home because he was trying to defend his family from what he thought was a home invasion by the police......again, on the wrong house. I guess his survivors can 'protest' his death through the courts.

the circumstances here.

judgment, EXACTLY covers the cases mentioned.

protected from possible violence?

trusted to carry a firearm in defense of laws and dealing with people in dangerous situations that the officer while propping the door open/etc couldn't say he needed to speak to the wife or he wasn't leaving/would break the door down if the man insisted on refusing him entry.

Instead he pushes past the man, technically assaulting him then breaking in/trespassing.

"Possible violence" opens a door to let police do whatever they want whenever they want, they have enough power as it is.

the general application of the ruling that almost everyone here is protesting!

and make the residents lay down and subject to it. Yeah, since no one died, no harm no foul.

take your time.

"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."

Do you agree with this ruling? Why?

Why is it so difficult to state your opinion clearly?

I could make the same comment back to you....show me where in my original post where I said the circumstances were the same.....take you time....I'll wait. I was simply pointing out that perils of this ruling and you appeared to dismiss it because my examples were not part of this occurrence.

are all too stupid to have bothered reading the articles in question. it would be funny if it were not so damned tedious.

government agents unlawfully entering people's homes. If the wife in this case was threatened, the cop only had to ask her if she wanted him to enter the property, or she could have stayed outside.

nothing more than an armed intruder who blatantly disregarded the homeowner's wishes and should have been arrested by his partner.

"modern Fourth Amendment" my ass. :grr:

Although the particulars of this case lead me to believe that there was some possibly legitimate concern for the wife and that could excuse the policemans's actions, it does not seem to justify the overly broad constitutional ruling and opinion that " 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."

It is indeed fascistic to give police such broad authority that they cannot be resisted from illegally entering your own home.

you'll see that Barnes (husband) was the appellant, so it is reasonable to assume he lost, at least, at the appeals court level.

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/nwitimes.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/c/82/cdb/c82cdbb8-7ea0-5c55-bb00-2aa247134bbb-revisions/4dcc5c97c31bf.pdf.pdf

IE, the Fourth Amendment doesn't exist anymore, so you peons have no right to privacy anymore.

Oh, and if you get killed by a cop during an unlawful entry, your family will have no legal leg to stand on in regards to legal recourse and justice. Cops can now kill whomever they want.

That is not remotely what the case says.

.

and the RULING

without recourse?

Nevermind.

a cop comes to your door, he can ask to come in. You say "I can't let you inside without a warrant." and he would have to step back and either forget it, or come back later with a warrant. Now, he can just push his way inside and you have to shrink back and not say a thing. You just have to hope later on a judge will agree that you were wronged and the cop must apologize. You don't get any protection at the time of the incident, which is the whole blasted point of the fourth amendment.

police just kill someone without recourse as the post I replied to claimed?

Hint: No.

on the whole thing in general, and not about the post that you replied to. This ruling is very bad for the people of Indiana, and the judges need to be impeached. We're losing our freedoms because of "public policy"

So, judges can be impeached for decisions you don't like?

decisions that gut protections of the fourth amendment. If the Supremes were to come up with some ruling that says that you aren't allowed in any way criticize an elected leader for piss poor decision making, I think it would be ok to call for their impeachment for trashing the constitution.
The scenario that I came up with (politely telling a police officer that he could not come in without a warrant), is the way that it is supposed to be, and has been in the past. In the "modern" interpretation of the fourth amendment, it's not actually a protection against unwarranted search and seizure. The cops can do anything they want, with no protections for people. What's to stop them from coming in illegally and just searching until they find something? And if they find nothing, they can just say "my bad" and go on their merry way? That's what this ruling does. There needs to be solid legal protections at the time of the incident. We need to be able to tell them that they can't come in without a warrant. Simple as that.

In the case at hand, it would make sense, but the way the judgment was written left much to be desired.