Posted on 05/25/2011 4:27:39 PM PDT by Sioux-san
A few years ago, two police officers were chasing a crack dealer at a Lexington, Ky., apartment complex when they lost sight of him as he ducked into one of two units at the end of a breezeway. Detecting "a very strong odor of burnt marijuana" coming from the apartment on the left, they figured that must be the one, so they banged on the door and shouted, "Police!" Hearing "the sound of persons moving," the officers later reported, they feared evidence was being destroyed, so they kicked in the door.
It turned out to be the wrong apartment, but inside the cops discovered a guest smoking pot and, during a "protective sweep" of the apartment, saw marijuana and cocaine powder "in plain view." A more thorough search turned up crack, cash and drug paraphernalia.
So much for the alleged destruction of evidence. So much, too, for the doctrine that a man's home is his castle, not to be forcibly entered by government agents on a whim or a hunch. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court said the "exigent circumstances" that exist when someone might be flushing drugs down a toilet allow police to enter a home without a warrant, even if their own actions create those circumstances.
As the lone dissenting justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noted, this decision "arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases." Instead of "presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate," they can retroactively validate their decision to break into someone's home by claiming they smelled something funny and heard something suspicious.
While the U.S. Supreme Court said police may force their way into a home to prevent the destruction of evidence, the Indiana Supreme Court, in a less noticed decision issued the week before, said police may force their way into a home for any reason or no reason at all. Although the victim of an illegal search can challenge it in court after the fact, three of the five justices agreed that "there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers." They thereby nullified a principle of common law that is centuries old, arguably dating back to the Magna Carta.
The case involved Richard Barnes, whose wife called 911 in November 2007 to report that he was throwing things around their apartment. When police encountered Barnes outside, he shouted that they were not needed because he was in the process of moving out. His wife emerged, threw a duffle bag in his direction and told him to collect the rest of his belongings. When two officers tried to follow the couple back into the apartment, Barnes blocked the way, while his wife said "don't do this" and "just let them in." Barnes shoved one officer against a wall, and a scuffle ensued.
After he was convicted of battery on a police officer, resisting law enforcement, and disorderly conduct, Barnes appealed, arguing that the jury should have been instructed about "the right of a citizen to reasonably resist unlawful entry into the citizen's home." The Indiana Supreme Court could have ruled that the officers' entry into the apartment was lawful given the possibility of violence, especially since Barnes' wife had called 911 and arguably invited them in. The majority suggested as much but inexplicably decided a far broader question. "Because we decline to recognize the right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry," the court said, "we need not decide the legality of the officers' entry into Barnes's apartment."
This backward approach suggests the justices were eager to repudiate a straightforward extension of self-defense that struck them as an outmoded impediment to law enforcement. Like the "sniff, knock, listen and kick" rule endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision illustrates the steady erosion of security in the name of security, even in the setting where our right to be left alone is supposed to be strongest.
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>I am amazed how so many here think that whatever the courts say is just fine.
Which is EXACTLY why I would use that misconception to bolster my argument, though not at the expense of actual/solid reasoning.
(BTW, the 2005 Kelo case is proof that misconception is HORRIBLY wrong; if the government can use imaginary things [’projections’ on ‘increased tax revenue’ from doing so] as satisfying the requirement that Eminent Domain be for “Public Use.”)
>The guy interfered with the officer responding to an alleged victim’s call for assistance.
The alleged victim was RIGHT THERE. (From the decision: “Mary did not explicitly invite the officers in, but she told Barnes several times, ‘don‘t do this’ and ‘just let them in.’”)
How the f—ck hard is it for the officer to say “Ma’am, do you need help here? Can I come in?”
And there’s EXPLICIT PERMISSION!
No he was in the process of moving out it was not complete. He denied access, she did not request or approve their entrance, no warrent therefore illegal.
Turns out there are OTHER DOCTRINES that allow courts to process cases without threat of being accused of criminal acts. It’s like sitting around prognosticating about a murder and people propose various possible perpetrators. None of those named has judicial recourse against the people discussing the possibilities. Judges have more protections, but the principle is the same ~ to wit, that judicial process is more important than petty claims about being offended.
>NO JUDGE in any future case will allow this abomination to be cited as precedent.
Just like no judge would use Roe v. Wade as precedent? Wicard v. Filburn? Kelo v. New London?
I agree on this point, but I fail to see how this validly translates into citizens not having the right to reasonably resist an illegal police entry into their homes. The facts of this case appear to support the legality of the police entry. The court's decision far exceeded that boundary.
How we got here is immaterial. The precedent set by this decision, which declares that a person's security in their own home is secured by lawyers and judges, and not by the person themselves, is a complete non-sequitor to me.
Again, what part of "SHARIAH LAW DOES NOT APPLY" don't you understand. Women have rights under ALL American laws.
You’re the one trying to make it legal to police to violate the law just because a jury instruction was deemed inappropriate.
>Turns out there are OTHER DOCTRINES that allow courts to process cases without threat of being accused of criminal acts.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Kelo was about Connecticut ~
Yes too many freepers allow too much leeway for the police. I guess it makes them feel safe.
>You’re the one trying to make it legal to police to violate the law just because a jury instruction was deemed inappropriate.
How so?
So, if a terrorist or felon sneaks into your back room without you knowing, and the police are pursuing him legally, you’ll blow the police away so the felon/terrorist is protected?
nice.
>I guess it makes them feel safe.
It doesn’t make ME feel safe.
She did not want to talk to the officers, If she had wanted to she would have done it in the parking lot. Twist and pull all you like but the police were wrong.
And you’ll know it’s illegal how?
The court's argument was that common law in the US had pretty much eviscerated the old english rule.
The point was simple ~ if you know they're cops, and they are there, whatever they do you have a chance to settle it later in court.
If you don't know they're cops, and they are there, Indiana has a Castle Doctrine law in place ~ just recently updated in fact.
I would not expect a court anywhere to rule that if you know they're cops you can shoot them down if you think they don't have a clear legal right to be there.
That's just not going to happen ~ not here, not anywhere, not even in a syndico-anarchist government.
Not having a warrant is separate issue. That has to do with reasonable search and seizure. Answering a call for help is NOT about search and seizure ~
Yeah...she told the invading husband (remember, that was not his domicile—it was hers) to let the cops in because she didn’t want the cops to come in.
Uh-huh.
I have not done significant investigation as to the facts of the case, but I have (from your posts, primarily) gathered that she invited the intervention. My concern is that the ruling did not address the reasonable reason to refuse the instruction. It would have been reasonable to state that the instruction would have been improper because the police entry was invited by the call from the wife.
What I find unreasonable is that the court based its decision on the proposition that a person has no right to prevent an unlawful police entry under any circumstance. I fail to see how the ruling can be read any other way.
It is not the decision to exclude the jury instruction, but instead the decision to assert that nobody can prevent an illegal entry by the police by “reasonable force” that bothers. In short, the court decided that “reasonable force” was unreasonable.
It’s a bad case. It doesn’t deserve to have risen to this level of scrutiny. But the judges’ decision to write their ruling in this fashion is a problem to me.
Where you from boy? Do they were them there white robes and turbines on their haids?
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