Indiana moves to allow people to protect themselves from police?

http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2012/SE/SE0001.1.html

All too often, we see examples of cops breaking into the wrong house and shooting the family dog, or worse, killing a member of the family.

Well, Indiana has taken action to “recognize the unique character of a citizen’s home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant.”

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/state-passes-law-legalize-self-defense-police/#34DDRQz6xHsJusjJ.99

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edit to add:

Myths and Misconceptions About Indiana's New Self-Defense Law

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/myths-and-misconceptions-_b_1596846.html

The changes to the law resulted from a widely criticized Indiana State Supreme Court ruling, Barnes v. State, in May 2011. The situation that triggered the court case (an appeal of a criminal conviction) resulted from an 2007 incident in which police responded to a 911 call about possible domestic violence.

After Richard Barnes had a verbal altercation with police, his wife pleaded with him to let officers into their home. Barnes refused. The police entered anyway. Barnes responded by shoving an officer to prevent him from coming inside. Barnes was arrested, charged and convicted of battery on a police officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He appealed, arguing that because the officers' entry into his home was illegal, he was permitted to use force to prevent them from coming inside.

The Indiana Supreme Court could have simply ruled that as a result of the call, Barnes' state of mind and his wife's pleas provided exigent circumstances for police to enter the Barnes' home legally. Instead, the court went much further, finding that "there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers." The court even acknowledged that this unraveled hundreds of years of common law precedent.

The ruling effectively barred anyone accused of using force against a police officer, for any reason, from arguing self-defense or the defense of others at a trial. At the time, critics pointed out that with the ruling, a man who uses force against a police officer who is raping his wife would not be allowed to argue in court that he was defending his family. The battered spouse of a police officer who fends off her husband could in theory be arrested and, under the ruling, wouldn't be permitted to argue self-defense.

While those scenarios may seem far-fetched, a bad prosecutor sympathetic to a wayward officer could easily make them a reality, said Mark Rutherford, chairman of the Indiana Public Defender Commission. "The police organizations say those sorts of things would never happen," he said. "And you'd hope a prosecutor wouldn't bring a charge like that. But if a prosecutor did charge you, you wouldn't be allowed to try to convince a jury that you were defending yourself. And that's the problem."

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