The Fourth Amendment doesn't work in Indiana

Losing constitutional faith? Don’t read this (via Michael Walsh).

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

So a husband and wife are arguing loudly outside. When the police attempt to enter the man’s home he blocks the doorway and resists efforts of law enforcement to come inside (before police use a stun gun to incapacitate him, that is.)

I suspect most of us can be sympathetic to the idea of preemptively stopping violence, if possible. But if law enforcement is handed free rein to rely on their own judgment, what stops the cops from forcibly entering a person’s home, against the wishes of the owner, whenever they are suspicious that violence is -- sorry, might be -- occurring?

Oh, and what ever happened to the Fourth Amendment?

One of the dissenting judges, it should be noted, wrote that, "The wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad." Ya think?

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