Your home is your castle? Not in Indiana

Just don't live in Indiana and you'll be fine.

 

Good advice, regardless.

 

I think it depends on the interpretation. Can a citizen slam his door and lock it? What if the officer has his palm on the outside of the door? Is that considered a use of force?

Cops already have so much authority and virtually complete immunity from almost anything they do that things that appear to give them additional unfettered ability to trample our rights just reflexively concern me.

 

I agree. It's a tough case. People's homes should be respected, but smacking on cops isn't a good plan, either.

 

I think - and this is merely conjecture - it would be a bigger whitewash than you think. As in unanimous territory. But I think they'd probably rule pretty damned narrowly, as well, as they typically do.

 

Unless you're a white Michael Vick. Them it's okay.

 

Sure you do. As I noted way up the thread, they got guns and plenty of them. More than you.

If it turns out their orders or demands for entrance were illegal, you pursue your remedies after the fact.

 

You'd rather, as a society as a whole, have people err on the side of letting the police in rather than have people decide what is probable cause/exigent circumstances and what is not.

You want to avoid disputes between police/citizens, not increase them.

 

Exactly. The point of the opinion, from my reading, is NOT to excuse a police officer from punishment for entry without probable cause. Instead, it's merely that the best way to handle an entry you believe improper is not through physical resistance or violence against the police officer, instead you should initially comply with his request to come in, but THEN you can sue their asses off afterward.

Does not strike me as all that unreasonable or controversial of an opinion.

 

Why should we err on the side of the police? If anything, it should be exactly the opposite.

And, as they say, ripped from the headlines

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/1046292--police-blocking-probe-into-dog-attack-siu-says

The Special Investigation Unit investigates a case of a police dog biting a woman and what happens?

A wall of silence from the cops.

Sound familiar?

 

Remarkably, a lot of inner-city residents - who the Supreme Court decisions on the exclusionary rule and such were meant to protect - have pushed for relaxation of the Fourth Amendment protections that are not considered part of the Constitution.

This is quite a thought-provoking article on the topic:

http://bostonreview.net/BR24.2/meares.html

 

In the heat of the moment, we should err on the side of the police.

When writing up procedures or assessing blame/punishment/whatever afterwards, we need to be very harsh on police.