Your home is your castle? Not in Indiana

I do think the article was written with a sensationalistic bent. The judges aren't given cops permission to bust into anyone's house.

They are ruling that even if you think a police officer does not have grounds to enter your home, you can't use force to try to prevent him.

 

I don't think they were shouting police. They were trying to break in to what they thought was a drug house.

But even if they were home invaders, shooting one wild round out of an old pistol at a group of people breaking into your house is not gonna solve your problem.

 

Also - and this sucks - we're a nation of 300 million people. Sometimes stuff goes wrong. Sometimes stuff goes horribly wrong. You don't go around changing the entire system and overriding the Constitution over it. Sometimes chances occurrences are just that.

 

Citizens do not have to obey unlawful orders from police. What actions are permissible beyond refusing to obey is a very slippery and dangerous path to tread. I would not advise anyone to use force. Civil protest methods might be better but still dangerous. Regardless, whether the citizen responds properly or not does not alter an officer's constitutional obligations.

 

Presumably we hold the police to a higher standard of conduct than we hold our criminals.

 

Reigning in these sorts of "raids" to when they are completely necessary would seem to go a long way toward solving this problem.

Definitely seems like a better solution than letting people fight police when they don't think the police are right.

 

You can always sue when you're dead.

 

The police remain bound to that standard of conduct. Nothing in the decision says that they aren't.

 

Given the behaviour of cops at the G20 summit in Toronto last year, I've becoming more and more disposed to reducing the police's discretionary powers when it comes to issues like this.

 

This ruling doesn't give police the right to make an illegal search of your home. It just says you can't use force to keep the police out of your home, even if you believe they have no right to barge in.

Maybe it's splitting hairs. I don't know.

 

Actually, it probably lowers the standard. I can presumably now be arrested for "resisting" simply by closing my door to any officer who appears on my front porch without a warrant.

And this court also just ruled that cops need no longer seek a judge's approval for a special 'no-knock' warrant. All warrants can be treated as 'no-knock' warrants at officers' discretion.

 

The only point with which I'd like to quibble is I think Dick is misreading Anthony Kennedy's intent. I think he'd side with Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer and Ginsburg on this one.