Quote:
Originally Posted by Derwood
can a state supreme court legally rule against the Federal Constitution?
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numerous states have written laws doing exactly that. I asked this question over a year ago, how people feel about the courts eliminating common law rights as public policy and I dont think anyone responded.
---------- Post added at 01:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinn
At the minimum, I'd like to see the actual case details rather than a little news blurb. I looked online but couldn't even find David's written opinion for the court.
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Jinn, in the article there is a link to access the PDF of the decision.
There's a few reasons I'm not really worried here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinn
#1: it's Indiana, not the federal government. If citizens of Indiana want to protest this law, and the fact that it appears state law is in contradiction with the US Constitution, they're free to do so. That's the recourse for citizens of states who pass these laws.
#2: The Constitution protects us from unlawful search and seizure, but does not make clear the method by which they may enter, except by warrant. Hundreds of years of case law have made a number of notable exceptions, like exigency. From the vague description the summaries have given, it appears that a call of a man and woman arguing in the front yard and then retreating inside the home and barring the door justifies very obvious exigent circumstances for the police to enter, especially considering the way domestic violence laws are structured.
#3: Without reading the entire opinions, it could be that a few inflammatory journalists have overblown the actual precedence created here. It could be that they more weakly defined this as a case of exigency and an invalid reason for "reasonable" resistance to entry.
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the dissents of this opinion explain in great detail just how overbroad the majority decision was. The majority didn't focus on the exigent circumstances in their holding. They just flat out eliminated a common law right. The dissenters even stated that had the majority focused on only the exigent circumstance, they would have gladly added domestic violence calls to the exceptions under exigent circumstances. The majority didn't do that though. The majority just flat out said that you have no right to resist entry by police officers, whether that entry is lawful or unlawful, because modern day circumstances allow for other remedies of rights violations now.