Much has been written and spoken as to the Indiana Supreme Court’s recent decision stating that a citizen within the borders of Indiana, in effect, has no legal right to resist a law enforcement official for an unlawful arrest occuring within a person’s home.
The uproar over this decision was felt far and wide with justice Steven David facing rare public consternation over the ruling. David and the other justices on Indiana’s supreme court were fully expected to overturn the former Indiana appellate court decision that had been roundly criticized as contradicting the spirit of the founding fathers embodied within the US constitution. Both politicians and news pundits nationally focused upon the ruling and Indiana’s present stance on the issue as a potential bellweather of things to come in regard to restricting the civil liberties of citizens and the ultimate erosion of the second amendment.
As a criminal attorney in Indiana I have a different take on the situation that is more practically focused upon reality than the ideals of the restriction of civil liberties feared within the recent ruling. If, in fact, I believed that a workable mechanism existed in Indiana by which the word of a citizen would be on equal footing with a law enforcement official within a criminal court of law, I would be more inclined to focus upon the workability of overturning such a decision. However, juries are smart and more intelligent than being given credit for. Where the rubber meets the road within a trial courtroom, discrediting a cop through sworn testimony as to course of conduct will almost always universally allow for a client’s case to be dismissed irrespective on whether the initial actions of a client were considered an unlawful act of resisting an improper arrest.
In reality those most active in voicing objections to the ruling are not those Indiana citizens who truly fear a future impact upon them. Rather, the public clamor has been most generated by politicians and.or news broadcasters using the ruling as a vehicle to further their own respective political agendas. As formerly stated, this agenda inevtiably is tied in with organizations such as the NRA who harbor the fear that gun restrictions are next on the agenda for courts such as Indiana’s who deign to curtail the rights of citizens even within their own homes.
The problem with this logic is that cops will rarely, if ever, willingly admit under the threat of civil liability that their actions were unlawful. In reality, I can think of no occasion in over twenty years of criminal defense practice where an officer or a colleague willingly admitted to engaging in an unlawful arrest.
As a result, the full import of this ruling I believe to have little consequence when addressing the realities of law enforcement conduct within the state of Indiana as related to criminal defense. The full weight of rulings such as this have less to do with the conduct of criminal representation as much as civil lawsuits occuring in the wake of a criminal defense victory that will only then more ably uncover the true nature of police misconduct. Much as before, only in the event of a criminal defense verdict and the threat of civil monetary liability will those responsible for overseeing and supervising those officers who stray from proper codes of ethical conduct take action.