05/20/11 State Senator Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso) announced Wednesday he will work to uphold constitutional rights provided by the 4th Amendment and help reverse the recent high court ruling on police entry by clarifying state self-defense laws in the 2012 legislative session.
“This ruling is troubling, because it signals that police have the right to enter homes for any reason or no reason at all,” Charbonneau said. “Indiana’s self-defense laws will be revisited when legislators reconvene in January, so that Hoosiers’ legal rights to question police officers’ unlawful entry into one’s home are restored.”
Indiana’s Supreme Court recently made a ruling contending that “allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”
Three Indiana Supreme Court judges who supported the decision said residents could use the court system if they felt a search was unjust. Two members – Justices Robert Rucker and Brent Dickson – strongly disagreed with the ruling, saying it was “unwarranted and unnecessarily broad.”
Charbonneau said the decision overturned a basic common law that dates back to the English Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago. He said the ruling contradicts the 4th Amendment right in the U.S. Constitution, protecting Americans against unreasonable search and seizure.
“While times change, our rights protected in the constitution do not,” Charbonneau said. “Americans must live freely without fear of unwarranted intrusion by an oppressive government.”
