Replies

>>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.
>
>They did not.

Functionally, they did:
“We hold that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”
“We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”
“Further, we note that a warrant is not necessary for every entry into a home.”
“Here, the trial court’s failure to give the proffered jury instruction was not error. BECAUSE WE DECLINE TO RECOGNIZE THE RIGHT TO REASONABLY RESIST AN UNLAWFUL POLICE ENTRY, WE NEED NOT DECIDE THE LEGALITY OF THE OFFICERS’ ENTRY[…]” ——— In other words, because we say there is no right [to bar entry] the jury may be kept uninstructed in the FACTS of the case, namely: the legality of that entry.
“In sum, we hold that Indiana the right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into a home is no longer recognized under Indiana law. Accordingly, the trial court‘s failure to give Barnes‘s proffered jury instruction on this right was not error.” ——— Notice the retro-activity of this, they NO LONGER hold the right to exist, so therefore it *DIDN’T* exist prior to this case; even though they previously cited United States v. Di Re (1948) and its quote “One has an undoubted right to resist an unlawful arrest, and courts will uphold the right of resistance in proper cases…”

From the dissenting opinion of Justice Rucker:
But the common law rule supporting a citizen’s right to resist unlawful entry into her home rests on a very different ground, namely, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Indeed, “the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585 (1980). In my view it is breathtaking that the majority deems it appropriate or even necessary to erode this constitutional protection based on a rationale addressing much different policy considerations. There is simply no reason to abrogate the common law right of a citizen to resist the unlawful police entry into his or her home.