According to the Court's documents, the wife called 911 when her husband, who was moving out, started "throwing things against the wall" of their apartment. When the police showed up, the husband was outside of the apartment and began yelling at the cop. A second cop showed up and the husband was still yelling. The cops told the man to stop yelling or they would arrest him for Disorderly Conduct.
The wife came out of the apartment with a bag full of the husband's stuff and threw it on the ground. The wife went back into the apartment and her 'mad' husband followed her. The two cops followed the wife and the husband. The husband stood at the threshold of the door and refused to let the cop in saying the cop had no legal right to enter. The wife told the husband "just let them in." The cops tried to get in which is when the husband threw the cop against a wall, the cops tased the husband and arrested him for: interfering with the reporting of a crime, disorderly conduct, resisting law enforcement and assaulting a police officer.
The husband wanted the jury to be told that he had a legal right to resist arrest because the cops were trying to 'illegally' enter his home without a warrant.
Specifically, Court of Appeals docs show that the husband wanted the jury to be told:
When an arrest is attempted by means of a forceful and unlawful entry into a citizen‟s home, such entry represents the use of excessive force, and the
arrest cannot be considered peaceable. Therefore, a citizen has the right to
reasonably resist the unlawful entry.
I am not arguing whether the officers entered the home "lawfully" or "unlawfully" but the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the conviction saying the man had no right to resist arrest and that pissed off the NRA to the point where they, the NRA, decided it was time to enact a Cop-Killing Amendment --- so that the next time, the husband could simply kill the cops and not be charged with murder --- you know, because the cops were trying to enter the home "unlawfully" according to the husband.
The Amendment to Indiana's Castle Doctrine
SECTION 1. IC 35-41-3-2, AS AMENDED BY P.L.189-2006, SECTION 1, IS AMENDED TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE UPON PASSAGE]:
Sec. 2. (a) In enacting this section, the general assembly finds and declares that it is the policy of this state to recognize the unique character of a citizen's home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant. By reaffirming the long standing right of a citizen to protect his or her home against unlawful intrusion, however, the general assembly does not intend to diminish in any way the other robust self defense rights that citizens of this state have always enjoyed. Accordingly, the general assembly also finds and declares that it is the policy of this state that people have a right to defend themselves and third parties from physical harm and crime. The purpose of this section is to provide the citizens of this state with a lawful means of carrying out this policy.
(b) As used in this section, "public servant" means a person described in IC 35-41-1-17, IC 35-31.5-2-129, or IC 35-31.5-2-185.
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(k) A person is not justified in using deadly force against a public servant whom the person knows or reasonably should know is a public servant unless:
(1) the person reasonably believes that the public servant is:
(A) acting unlawfully; or
(B) not engaged in the execution of the public servant's official duties; and
(2) the force is reasonably necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person.
SECTION 2. An emergency is declared for this act.
Right or wrong, I have no doubt that the husband honestly believed that the police officer was "unlawfully" entering his home. If this Amendment to the Castle Doctrine had been enacted at the time, the husband could have used this law as an excuse to murder the cops -- and who really knows what a jury would have determined.
Also, I find the law to be very broad when it says: "A person is not justified in using deadly force against a public servant ... unless:
(1) the person reasonably believes that the public servant is:
(A) acting unlawfully
Does that mean you can kill a cop, or public servant that you see smoking pot -- which is an "unlawful act" in Indiana?
The police lobbied against the NRA cop-killing Bill but lost.
Another Indiana Republican who is owned by the NRA, State Rep. Jud McMillin who sponsored the Bill tried to accommodate police by adding specific requirements that might justify force, and by replacing "law enforcement officer" in the original version with "public servant," said , the Indiana House sponsor.
Naturally, the Indiana Police do not like the law and voiced concerns, Bloomberg reports:
Indiana Police Sergeant Joseph Hubbard said, “If I pull over a car and I walk up to it and the guy shoots me, he’s going to say, ‘Well, he was trying to illegally enter my property,’” said Hubbard, 40, who is president of Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100. “Somebody is going get away with killing a cop because of this law.”
The President of the Indiana Sheriff's Association, Officer Heaton said
"I'm not worried about the law-abiding citizens. It's the ones that really don't understand the law and they just think, 'Cop shows up at my door, I can do whatever I want to him.'"
Tim Downs, president of the Indiana State Fraternal Order of Police, which opposed the legislation, said the law could open the way for people who are under the influence or emotionally distressed to attack officers in their homes.
“It’s just a recipe for disaster,” Downs told Bloomberg News. “It just puts a bounty on our heads.”
In June 2012, Indiana Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, who is also owned by the NRA, signed the Bill into law and said the Bill is no big deal.
The measure requires those using force to "reasonably believe" a law-enforcement officer is acting illegally and that it's needed to prevent "serious bodily injury," Daniels said in a statement when he signed the law.
Daniels went on to say:
"In the real world, there will almost never be a situation in which these extremely narrow conditions are met," Daniels said. "This law is not an invitation to use violence or force against law enforcement officers."
Here's the deal, the NRA did not like a Court's decision so they instructed those legislators and Governor they bought and own to write a Bill that enable the "people" to kill "public servants" --- is your state going to be the next state to enact a Cop-Killing Bill?
I don't give a damn what any of these NRA-owned people say, the NRA is a danger to society. They have bastardized the 2nd Amendment and are passing laws, under the radar, that are geared to screw with stats on murder rates so at the same time they can chant "more guns do not increase the murder rate." and "more guns lower murder rates."
You see, if a person kills a cop and gets away with it, then the murder is not classified as "murder" and thus is not included in "murder rate" -- same thing goes for the NRA backed Stand Your Ground Law. So now, we have to look at Homicide rate by guns to get an idea of how many deaths there are by gun because the NRA is successfully redefining the term "murder rate" by gun.
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