Farewell, Liberty
To arms, citizens.
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.
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.
“It’s not surprising that they would say there’s no right to beat the hell out of the officer,” Bodensteiner said. “(The court is saying) we would rather opt on the side of saying if the police act wrongfully in entering your house your remedy is under law, to bring a civil action against the officer.”
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.
“In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally — that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances,” Rucker said. “I disagree.”
My comment: One cannot always trust newspapers. But if this report is true, the only fit reaction to this news is either to be speechless, or to contemplate the unspeakable.
Justice Steven David, if he had written an opinion like that for my professor of Police Procedure class, would have flunked the class.
In this fact pattern, once the citizen, who is neither under arrest nor subject to a “stop” has stepped back over the threshold of his domicile and verbally told the police they may not enter, and if the police officer has no reasonable suspicion that an immediate threat to life and limb is taking place, he has no right to enter, much less perform an assault (the unlawful touching of forcing an entry constitutes an assault) to force his way in past the homeowner. If the police officer attempts to force his way in unlawfully, his actions exceed the scope of his authority, and the entry is unlawful. A free man has a right to eject an unlawful intruder to his dwelling place, and may use reasonable force to do so: this includes throwing him up against a wall.
The chutzpah needed to overturn a basic principle of the law and of the rights of man dating back to AD 1215 is simply astonishing, almost awe-inspiring. The legal eccentricity of Emperor Caligula forcing the Senate to vote him to be a god is the only thing of comparable magnitude I can imagine. Overturning the Fourth Amendment by judicial fiat is minor in comparison.
Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, needs to have his license to teach revoked, or, rather, he needs to be dragged from his bed at night by ruthless vigilantes and hanged by the neck from a lamppost in the town square as a warning to others.
While his legs are still kicking energetically a few inches above the pavement, one of the vigilantes, OR A FIRST YEAR LAW STUDENT could perhaps explain to the man who allegedly teaches law difference between being shoved against a wall and ‘having the hell beat out of him’ — the distinction being one of the proportional and reasonable use of violence.
Deplorable as such reckless violence might be, I submit it would certainly bring to the mind of his fellow law professors that theirs a sacred trust, not lightly violated, that they must teach future attorneys and judges the law, and not the opinions of men.
What? Do you think raw violence by roving vigilantes is unlawful and not in keeping with the customs and dignity of free men?
Well, neither is allowing police officers to enter a man’s home without reason, without warrant, and without color of authority.
The difference is that what I said was, even if bitter and dark humor, was a humor, not meant to be taken literally: what he said was meant literally.
His words are an oath of fealty and a pledge of loyalty to future tyrants yet unborn; such words are ever the sacred kiss on the rump of Baphomet which all must perform who worship that Babylonian idol whose name is THE UNBRIDLED POWER OF THE STATE.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
