Statehouse to consider unlawful entry legislation

Shortly after finals ended at ISU and we all went home last spring, the Indiana Supreme Court made a controversial ruling.  

Last May, the courts ruled that citizens did not have the right to resist an unlawful entry by a police officer.  The media was shocked; everyone and their brother decried the ruling and its horrible infringement upon individual rights and freedoms.

This issue came up again recently when a summer study committee addressed it.  Since I didn't know anything about the case beyond what I'd read in the media, I decided to read the actual ruling by the justices—which was actually pretty easy to read.

Not surprisingly, it made a lot of sense.  To give some background, the right to resist entry into a home was based on the principle behind resisting arrest.  Common law upheld a person's right to resist unlawful arrest with reasonable force.  

During the time of English Common Law (which ours is based upon), being arrested carried much higher risks.  The ruling cites "indefinite detention, lack of bail, disease-infested prisons [and] physical torture" as possible issues.  

However, in modern times, these issues are significantly reduced or eliminated.  Wrongfully arrested citizens have a whole host of options that did not exist during the original common law.

Another concern was that resisting arrest often leads to escalating violence.  This puts both the individual resisting arrest and the arresting officer in danger, leading to more injuries.  

Also, resisting arrest doesn't lead to actually avoiding arrest. So, even if the arrest is unlawful, resisting will create more violence without achieving anything.  This, paired with the options to redress their unlawful arrest, makes it unnecessarily dangerous.  

To bring it all back to the case at hand, the situation in the Barnes v. State case arose from a fight between Barnes and his wife.  The fight escalated to the point that she called 911 and officers were sent out on a "domestic violence in progress" situation.  They attempted to enter the home during the process of investigating the situation and were blocked by Barnes.  Special circumstances such as this—referred to as exigent circumstances—do not require a police officer to have a warrant.  Domestic violence situations can escalate quickly and others would be harmed if police officers had to wait until violence was happening to interfere.  

Clearly, the ruling was based on sound reasoning and well intentioned.  However, the ruling merely said that individuals may not attempt to prevent an unlawful entry by police officers.  This broad ruling could have unintended consequences for other, less appropriate situations.  

While this ruling may be appropriate for domestic violence cases to protect victims of abuse, it has a wide potential for abuse and is a little scary to think about.  

Luckily, lawmakers in the Statehouse are also concerned and will be proposing legislation in the next session to narrow the scope of this ruling.  The proposed legislation would allow citizens to resist entry from police officers who do not identify themselves in some way. 

However, this resistance would not be permissible in the case of domestic violence, if someone is in danger, if someone else invites them in or if they are pursuing a fleeing suspect.  The proposed legislation would protect police officers doing their job, as well as individual rights of law-abiding citizens.