'No right to resist' ruling- headache for Mitch Daniels?

On Thursday, May 12, the Indiana Supreme Court held in Barnes v. State that an individual has no right to reasonably resist by force the unlawful entry into his home by a police officer. Under this opinion, the court overturned an ancient common law right to resist unlawful entry as well as Indiana case law upholding this right as recently as 1985. The court went on to say that resisting “an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”

While many states struck down the English common law right to use reasonable force to resist unlawful arrest by police about 60 years ago, this case goes beyond the use of force against an unlawful arrest. By its opinion, the Indiana Supreme Court has eliminated the defense of reasonably resisting the unlawful entry of a police officer into a person’s home.

The Fourth Amendment still protects your right to the privacy of your home. You are not required by Barnes v. State to consent to the entry of your home; you just can’t forcibly resist authorities’ attempts to enter… Should a police officer unlawfully force his or her way into home, you would have recourse through the courts.

The decision has become a political headache for Mitch Daniels’ potential presidential bid because the justice who authored the controversial opinion, Steven David, is his first and only choice to sit on the high court. The choice of David had already drawn criticism from some corners because of his views opposing the U.S. military’s handling of Gitmo detainees where he had been assigned to represent enemy combatants accused of plotting terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its soldiers as a JAG officer.