Under no circumstance can residents of Indiana resist police entering their homes, even if there are no legal grounds for officers to do so, according to the state’s highest court.

 

In a 3-2 ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court found “a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”

 

Justice Steven David wrote for the majority that individuals have other opportunities to protest illegal entry, such as through civil litigation.

 

The case stemmed from an incident in which Richard Barnes resisted a police officer’s entry into his apartment after his wife, Mary, called 911, complaining that he was throwing things around. Police officers confronted Barnes in a parking lot and then followed him to the apartment. Barnes told them they could not enter. When Officer Lenny Reed entered the residence anyway, Barnes shoved him against a wall, leading to a second officer employing a taser to subdue Barnes, who was arrested and hospitalized after he “suffered an adverse reaction to the taser.”

 

Two justices dissented from the ruling. Justice Robert Rucker and Justice Brent Dickson took the position that if the ruling had been limited to cases involving potential domestic violence, they would have supported it. However, Dickson said the decision was too broad for his taste. “The wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad,” Dickson wrote.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Court: No Right to Resist Illegal Cop Entry into Home (by Dan Carden, Northwest Times)

Indiana Court Strips Citizens of Right to Resist Unlawful Police Entry (by Stephen Webster, Raw Story)

Richard Barnes v. State of Indiana (Indiana Supreme Court) (pdf)