The Resistance Rises: Reinstating the "Castle Doctrine"

As the lower house of theIndiana State Legislature approved Senate Bill 1 on March 1, RepresentativeLinda Lawson lamented that if it were passed the measure would signal thatit’s “open season on law enforcement.”

 “You have men and women in yourcommunity who are willing to die for you, willing to die for your family,” insistedLawson, who – as a former police officer herself –spoke onbehalf of 15,000 members of the police union. The only suitable way to displayproper gratitude to the heroic paladins of public order, according to Lawson, is to protect their purported authority to invade your home and killyou with impunity – a privilege that would be undermined by SB 1. 
 
The text of SB 1 states that itslegislative purpose “is to protect citizens from unlawful entry into theirhomes by law enforcement officers or persons pretending to be law enforcementofficers. Both citizens and law enforcement officers benefit from clear guidanceabout the parameters of lawful home entry, which will reduce the potential forviolence and respect the privacy and property of citizens.” 
 
To that end, the bill recognizesthat an individual “may use force … to prevent or terminate a law enforcementofficer’s unlawful entry.” 

Tool of the Police Union: Rep. Lawson (right foreground).

 Although Lawson’s hunting metaphor wasprobably used because it was a convenient cliché, it contains a deeper significancethat should not be ignored: Like the rest of the State’s exalted brotherhood ofcoercion, she assumes that the privacy of the individual’s home falls withinthe police officer’s natural habitat. 


SB1 is not an innovation; itsimply restores an explicit understanding of Indiana’s “castle doctrine,” whichwas subverted last year in the Indiana State Supreme Court’s Barnes v.State ruling. As a wireservice report observed at the time, that ruling effectively nullified the coreprotections contained in the Fourth Amendment and the equivalent provision inthe Indiana constitution, as well as protections and immunities recognized by "commonlaw dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215.” The 3–2 decision last May12 held that Indiana residents have no right to obstruct unlawful policeincursions into their homes.

As summarized by a legislativereport last November, the incident that gave rise to the Barnes ruling occurredfour years earlier, when police were summoned to the home of Richard Barnes andhis wife by a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance. 

Barnes was in the parkinglot arguing with his girlfriend when the police arrived. She had already throwna duffel bag of his belongings outside the apartment, and told him to “take therest of his stuff.” As Barnes re-entered the apartment to do so, the policeattempted to follow him inside. Barnes quite properly told the police to stayout, and enforced that lawful order by shoving a police officer who disobeyed. 

 Barnes was charged with Batteryon a Police Officer, Resisting Law Enforcement, Disorderly Conduct, andInterfering with the Reporting of a Crime. The judge rejected a proposed juryinstruction that Barnes had the right to resist unlawful police entry, and hewas convicted on the second and third charges. The Court of Appeals ruled thatthe trial court committed a reversible error by rejecting that juryinstruction. The state, frantic appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheldBarnes’s conviction.

 “We believe … a right to resistan unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and isincompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” wrote Justice StevenDavid. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the levelof violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved withoutpreventing the arrest.”

 Although the "risks"to a police officer in such an encounter are vanishingly small, we shouldn’tforget that at all times, and in all places, "officer safety" is thecontrolling priority. "It's not surprising that [the court] would saythere's no right to beat the hell out of the officer,” commented Professor IvanBodensteiner of Valparaiso University School of Law.

When a cop invades a homewithout legal authority, he is acting as a criminal, rather than a peaceofficer. SB 1 recognizes that principle by focusing on the act of illegalentry, rather than the identity of the aggressor. 

The measure allows forforcible entry only when the officer has a valid warrant or legitimate probable cause; is in pursuit of a criminal suspect; or is acting with theconsent or on the invitation of an adult resident. In other words: It would restorethe status quo ante Barnes, which – in nullifying the Fourth Amendment –actually issued a hunting license to the police.

 Last June, 71 members of thestate legislature filed a petition with the Supreme Court protesting the Barnesdecision and demanding that it be revisited. In September, the Court issued aruling reiterating the claim that “the Castle Doctrine is not a defense to thecrime of battery or other violent acts on a police officer,” and recognizingthat the state legislature had the authority to create statutory defensesagainst that supposed crime. 


“Our laws, our statutes, ourConstitution, and the value of our country [were built] on one premise, andthat was to defend our citizens against the government –not defend ourgovernment against our citizens,” noted State Senator Mike Young ofIndianapolis, author of SB 1. “The [Barnes] ruling was a ruling that defendedthe government against the citizens.” 

 Rep. Jud McMillin of Dearborn,who wrote the house version of the bill, added: “The distinction here is notbetween police officers and citizens. The distinction to be made here isbetween what is lawful and what is unlawful. In a society where we value ourfreedoms, we cannot have a bright-line test that tells people when they cannotexercise their freedoms.”*

Such talk is intolerable tothose employed by Indiana’s affiliate of the Homeland Security State, whoinsist that public policy must preserve the privileges of the powerful, ratherthat the rights of the individual.


“We believe people have theright to be secure in their homes,” testified Hendricks County Sheriff DaveGalloway, uttering a sentence pregnant with the invalidating conjunction “but” –which, of course, followed immediately. “But the people who hear about this laware going to think it’s okay to kill a law enforcement officer. What you and Ithink is `reasonable’ isn’t the same as somebody high on meth. They’re going toshoot first, and ask questions later.” 

 A far greater and more commondanger is that posed by police officers who are high on the most lethal of allnarcotics – power.  The official positionof the Indiana Fraternal Order of Police is that any use of coercive force bythe State’s costumed enforcers is self-validating.

 “Our position is there is neveran opportunity to resist law enforcement,” insistedBill Owensby, president of the Indianapolis FOP. A great deal is revealedin Owensby’s choice of adverb: “Never” would apply to situations in whichpolice officers commit unambiguous crimes against person and property.

 Among the most prominent criticsof SB 1 are rent-seeking activists and social engineers attached to the state’sdomestic violence industry, who insist that the measure would impede theability of police to respond to situations involving spousal abuse. Under the “no-resistance”doctrine, however, a police officer can commit domestic violence and thencharge the victim with a crime if sheresists. As was illustrated by the case of Jerry Cunningham, the formerassistant chief of the Danville, Indiana Police Department, police andprosecutors are eager to extenuate crimes of domestic violence when perpetratedby a member of their hyper-violent sodality.

 In October 2010, Cunningham –who was in the middle of a divorce – tracked his estranged wife to another man’shome. After tearing down the screen door, Cunningham began what wasdescribed as an “altercation” in which he slapped his wife and slugged herparamour. A neighbor called 911 to report the incident, but made the mistake ofidentifying Cunningham as a police officer. 
 
As a result, rather than being “cuffedand stuffed” by a SWAT team, Cunningham received the personal attention ofChief Keith Gill, who displayed unaccustomed daintiness in bringing in hisunderling. Rather than booking him immediately into the jail, Gill tookCunningham to his home “to find out what’s going on – call for help, call forsome counseling,” theChief later recounted. 
 
Afterbeing placed on paid vacation (which was hastily redefined as “medicalleave” in order to keep him on the payroll after the police merit board ruledthat he be suspended without pay), Cunningham facedthree charges, including a felonious unlawful home entry. He was eventuallyfound guilty only of one count of misdemeanor battery. He was given a 363-daysuspended jail sentence and slapped with a fine of $1. He was also permitted tokeep his job, albeit with a reduction in rank to patrolman – a position inwhich, under the Barnes ruling, he would be permitted to invade homes at willand shoot anyone who resists his criminal aggression.


Cunningham was not the onlydomestic abuser on the payroll of the Danville PD, nor was he even the mostviolent offender; that distinction belongs to OfficerChris Gill, the Chief’s son. According to his ex-wife Teresa, Officer Gillrepeatedly beat her, throwing her against the wall of their home and eventhreatening to murder her in the presence of their child.






Aninvestigation of Officer Gill conducted by Policeabuse.com – a groupcomposed of retired police officers, private investigators, and court-qualifiedexpert witnesses on police practices -- revealed a long history of officialmisconduct and criminal behavior by the gypsy cop. Gill had been cashiered bypolice departments in Paris and Atwood, Illinois, before his father made roomfor him on the Danville PD. Sheltered behind the impregnable barricade ofnepotism, Gill continues to prowl the streets of Danville despite protectionorders granted to his ex-wife and ex-in-laws – and a pending criminal trial ondomestic abuse charges.


As her marriage with the officerdisintegrated, Teresa Gill placed their daughter with her mother and father,Joyce and Robert Abernathy. In March 2010, while Officer Gill was still on thepayroll of the Paris, Illinois PD, he used his position to remove the childfrom the Abertnathys’ home: He filed a false police report claiming that Teresahad threatened to kill that child. As he collected the child from her grandparents,Gill lifted his coat to display his gun and badge in a vulgar display ofmurderous intent. 

Aiding and abetting abuse: Keith Gill, Danville's nepotistic Police Chief.

 During an April 2010 childvisitation, Gill assaulted both Teresa and their son, which resulted in Teresafiling felony domestic battery charges against him. 

Gill, who stands to losehis job if he is convicted, has repeatedly barraged his soon-to-be-ex-wife andher parents with threats of lethal violence – while reveling in his sense ofprivilege as a member of the Brotherhood in Blue.
 
“I’m gonna do whatever it takesto f**k up your life,” Gill promised in a June 22, 2010 text message to Teresa.“I am a cop, they won’t believe you.  Have them drop [the charges] and I will stop…Nice try Whore.”

During legislative hearingsabout the Barnes ruling, Leo Blackwell, President of Indiana’s Fraternal Orderof Police insisted that “legal disputes about the right of entry should bedecided by the courts, not on the doorstep.” Under the supported by Blackwell’spolice union, Gill could invade his estranged wife’s home without a warrant orprobable cause -- and then arrest and charge her with a crime if she proved tobe insufficiently submissive.  Sure, thiswould eventually get straightened out by the courts – assuming that Teresa andher children survive the initial encounter. 

“TheFOP will not compromise when it comes to officer safety,” declared Blackwell ina recent legislative alert to union members. SB 1 “is terrible for lawenforcement and could result in the loss of life (maybe yours) if passed.” Accordingto the union, it is “never” permissible to resist a police officer – even whenthe sacred cause of preserving “officer safety"meansleaving a battered and terrorized woman entirely defenseless because the terrorist is carrying a badge.

* It should be acknowledged that Rep. McMillin's zeal for uniform application of the law has its limits: He withdrew a measure proposing drug tests for welfare recipients after it was amended to include legislators. For McMillin, apparently, some tax-consumers are more equal than others.

Your help in keeping Pro Libertate on-line is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Be sure to check out Republic magazine -- and sign up for your free digital subscription.

Dum spiro, pugno!