This Is A Scary Development

**mrspunkysmom** · 05-20-2011, 07:26 PM

Of course, you could move to Texas. There you can shoot anyone on your front lawn, if you say you were in fear of your life.

On the other hand, days like today, make me glad that teachers cannot carry weapons. It's not the students that would have to worry though.

**Grace** · 05-20-2011, 07:41 PM

Linda Greenhouse writes about The Supreme Court for the NY Times. Her latest piece is in this same vein -

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...-in-dreamland/

**lizbud** · 05-21-2011, 05:13 PM

There has been a idea floating around about term limits for the
Supreme Court as well as every other State & Federal elective office.
I think it's just about time for it now. Most folks I know would vote for it.

Here in Indy quite a uproar over our Indiana SC ruling of last thursday.
Our AJ has said said if asked by the plaintiff, he would be more than happy
to ask the Court to revisit it's ruling. It is much to broad in its scope &
should confine it's ruling to only the case at hand.

The Indianapolis Star ( right leaning paper) published a Editorial opinion.

Court ruling breaches the 'castle'
Indianapolis Star - Indianapolis, Ind.
Date: May 19, 2011
Start Page: A.18
Section: Editorial
Text Word Count: 388

A majority of justices on the Indiana Supreme Court arrived at a troubling conclusion in a recent ruling that centers on police officers' authority to enter people's homes without their permission and without a search warrant.

The ruling centers on a Vanderburgh County case in which Richard Barnes was convicted of three misdemeanor charges after he shoved a police officer who tried to enter his apartment without permission. Two officers had arrived at the apartment in response to a domestic violence call placed by Barnes' wife, Mary, in November 2007.

Barnes obviously was wrong to use physical force against a police officer. The facts of the case also indicate that the officers had adequate reason to be concerned about Mary Barnes' safety.

But the 3-2 ruling goes beyond this particular case to assert that, "We hold that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers."

The majority's use of the phrase "no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry" is disturbing. Let's agree that shoving, or otherwise trying to harm or threaten, a police officer is unreasonable (and unlawful) behavior.

But shouldn't a citizen have the legal right to stand in a doorway, thus blocking entry by his physical presence, in resistance to an officer's attempt to enter his home without a search warrant?

In a strong dissent to the majority ruling, Justice Robert Rucker noted that a citizen's right to resist unlawful entry is rooted not only in the common law but also the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As Rucker pointed out, a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Payton vs. New York, found that "the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed."

The high court held that "the Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest."

In a separate dissent to last week's ruling, Justice Brent Dickson wrote that "the wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad."

We would add that the decision also was unsound. And with it, a piece of Hoosiers' protection against excessive police powers was erased.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Abstract (Document Summary)
A majority of justices on the Indiana Supreme Court arrived at a troubling conclusion in a recent ruling that centers on police officers' authority to enter people's homes without their permission and without a search warrant.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.