DAVID, J.
On November 18, 2007, Richard Barnes argued with his wife Mary Barnes as he was moving out of their apartment. During the argument, Mary tried to call her sister but Barnes grabbed the phone from her hand and threw it against the wall. Mary called 911 from her cell phone and informed the dispatcher that Barnes was throwing things around the apartment but that he had not struck her. The 911 dispatch went out as a “domestic violence in progress.”
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Officer Jason Henry arrived on the scene and observed that Barnes was “very agitated and was yelling.” Barnes “continued to yell, loudly” and did not lower his voice until Reed warned that he would be arrested for disorderly conduct. Barnes retorted, “if you lock me up for Disorderly Conduct, you‘re going to be sitting right next to me in a jail cell.” Mary came onto the parking lot, threw a black duffle bag in Barnes‘s direction, told him to take the rest of his stuff, and returned to the apartment. Reed and Henry followed Barnes back to the apartment. Mary entered the apartment, followed by Barnes, who then turned around and blocked the doorway. Barnes told the officers that they could not enter the apartment and denied Reed‘s requests to enter and investigate. Mary did not explicitly invite the officers in, but she told Barnes several times, “don‘t do this” and “just let them in.” Reed attempted to enter the apartment, and Barnes shoved him against the wall. A struggle ensued, and the officers used a choke hold and a taser to subdue and arrest Barnes. Barnes suffered an adverse reaction to the taser and was taken to the hospital.
Barnes was charged with Class A misdemeanor battery on a police officer, Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement, Class B misdemeanor disorderly conduct, and Class A misdemeanor interference with the reporting of a crime. Before the trial, Barnes tendered a jury instruction on the right of a citizen to reasonably resist unlawful entry into the citizen‘s home. [Footnote omitted.] The trial court refused Barnes‘s instruction and did not otherwise instruct the jury as to the right to reasonably resist. The jury found Barnes guilty of battery on a police officer, resisting law enforcement, and disorderly conduct.
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Barnes contests that his tendered jury instruction should have been given because it was a correct statement of a viable legal defense supported by the facts and because that defense was not covered by the other instructions. We acknowledge that the Court of Appeals followed its own precedents in its analysis. Now this Court is faced for the first time with the question of whether Indiana should recognize the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers. We conclude that public policy disfavors any such right. Accordingly, the trial court‘s refusal to give Barnes‘s tendered instruction was not error.
The English common-law right to resist unlawful police action existed for over three hundred years, and some scholars trace its origin to the Magna Carta in 1215. . . . The United States Supreme Court recognized this right in Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529, 535 (1900): “If the officer had no right to arrest, the other party might resist the illegal attempt to arrest him, using no more force than was absolutely necessary to repel the assault constituting the attempt to arrest.” The Supreme Court has affirmed this right as recently as 1948. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 594 (1948) (“One has an undoubted right to resist an unlawful arrest, and courts will uphold the right of resistance in proper cases.”).
In the 1920s, legal scholarship began criticizing the right as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers. . . . One scholar noted that the common-law right came from a time where “resistance to an arrest by a peace officer did not involve the serious dangers it does today.” Sam B. Warner, The Uniform Arrest Act, 28 Va. L. Rev. 315, 330 (1942). The Model Penal Code eliminated the right on two grounds: “(1) the development of alternate remedies for an aggrieved arrestee, and (2) the use of force by the arrestee was likely to result in greater injury to the person without preventing the arrest.” Hemmens & Levin, supra, at 23. In response to this criticism, a majority of states have abolished the right via statutes in the 1940s and judicial opinions in the 1960s. Id. at 24–25.
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We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Nowadays, an aggrieved arrestee has means unavailable at common law for redress against unlawful police action. E.g., Warner, supra, at 330 (citing the dangers of arrest at common law—indefinite detention, lack of bail, disease-infested prisons, physical torture—as reasons for recognizing the right to resist); State v. Hobson, 577 N.W.2d 825, 835–36 (Wis. 1998) (citing the following modern developments: (1) bail, (2) prompt arraignment and determination of probable cause, (3) the exclusionary rule, (4) police department internal review and disciplinary procedure, and (5) civil remedies). We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest—as evident by the facts of this instant case. E.g., Hobson, 577 N.W.2d at 836 (“But in arrest situations that are often ripe for rapid escalation, one‘s ‘measured’ response may fast become excessive.”). Further, we note that a warrant is not necessary for every entry into a home. For example, officers may enter the home if they are in “hot pursuit” of the arrestee or if exigent circumstances justified the entry. E.g., United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42–43 (1976) (holding that retreat into a defendant‘s house could not thwart an otherwise proper arrest made in the course of a “hot pursuit”); Holder v. State, 847 N.E.2d 930, 938 (Ind. 2006) (“Possible imminent destruction of evidence is one exigent circumstance that may justify a warrantless entry into a home if the fear on the part of the police that the evidence was immediately about to be destroyed is objectively reasonable.”). Even with a warrant, officers may have acted in good faith in entering a home, only to find later that their entry was in error. E.g., Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 11 (1994); United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922–25 (1984). In these situations, we find it unwise to allow a homeowner to adjudge the legality of police conduct in the heat of the moment. As we decline to recognize a right to resist unlawful police entry into a home, we decline to recognize a right to batter a police officer as a part of that resistance.
Here, the trial court‘s failure to give the proffered jury instruction was not error.
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan, J., concur.
DICKSON, J. dissents with a separate opinion:
Acknowledging the historic common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers, the majority tethers its abrogation of this right on (a) modern developments that have diminished the dangers of arrest at common law (e.g., indefinite detention, lack of bail, disease-infested prisons, physical torture), (b) the desire to minimize the risk of the level of violence and risk of injuries, and (c) the rights of police to enter a home even without a warrant under certain circumstances. But the consistent existence of and adherence to many of these factors unfortunately remains less than ideal. Courts continue to see claims alleging excessive preliminary detention, failure to promptly set bail, and excessive use of force by police.
In my view, the wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad. The case before us involves police action in response to a report of domestic violence in progress. Such events present a heightened urgency for police presence for the protection of the dwelling’s occupants and to diffuse enraged emotions and animosity. It would have been preferable, in my view, for the Court today to have taken a more narrow approach, construing the right to resist unlawful police entry, which extends only to reasonable resistance, by deeming unreasonable a person’s resistance to police entry in the course of investigating reports of domestic violence. Such a formulation would have been more appropriate for the facts presented and more consistent with principles of judicial restraint. Such a more cautious revision of the common law would have, in cases not involving domestic violence, left in place the historic right of people to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into their dwellings.
RUCKER, J. dissents with a separate opinion in which Dickson, J. concurs:
The majority has made a respectable case supporting the proposition that the common law rule entitling a person to resist an unlawful arrest is outmoded in our modern society. . . . A product of the English common law, the rule permitting resistance to unlawful arrest was based on the premise that everyone should be privileged to use reasonable force to prevent an unlawful invasion of his physical integrity and personal liberty. . . . And the rule arose during a time when self-help was a more necessary remedy to resist intrusions upon one‘s freedom. . . . [L]argely for the reasons the majority explains the considerations underlying the right to resist arrest are no longer applicable for the twenty-first century or, for that matter, the twentieth century.
But the common law rule supporting a citizen‘s right to resist unlawful entry into her home rests on a very different ground, namely, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Indeed, “the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585 (1980). In my view it is breathtaking that the majority deems it appropriate or even necessary to erode this constitutional protection based on a rationale addressing much different policy considerations. There is simply no reason to abrogate the common law right of a citizen to resist the unlawful police entry into his or her home.
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At issue in this case is not whether Barnes had the right to resist unlawful police entry into his home – a proposition that the State does not even contest – but rather whether the entry was illegal in the first place, and if so, whether and to what extent Barnes could resist entry without committing a battery upon the officer. Federal Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is equal to the task of resolving these issues. [Footnote omitted.] In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally – that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances. And that their sole remedy is to seek refuge in the civil arena. I disagree and therefore respectfully dissent.
Dickson, J., concurs.