Last May the Indiana Supreme Court surprised constitutionalists and patriots the nation over by calling the “castle doctrine” — that is, the age-old view that a man’s home is his castle, his place to defend from all unauthorized invasions — a thing of the past.

The newly minted Justice Steven David, writing for himself, Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard and Justice Frank Sullivan, decreed the following to be Indiana law (over the dissent of justices Robert Rucker and Brent Dickson):

“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 available at common law for the redress against unlawful police action.”

Please note that the Royalist “we” above is limited to 60 percent of the Indiana Supreme Court in 2011. Three contemporary men in black have taken it upon themselves to roll back almost 800 years of common law. Thus the hubris that is post-modernity is on full display in Indianapolis.

On Tuesday, this same court reaffirmed its May ruling, allegedly “clarifying” (i.e., in a manner likely to pacify the politicos getting grief from their constituents) that their decision visits no harm upon the Fourth Amendment. (Rightly understood, that is — which really means Leftly understood, of course.)

The Indiana Supreme Court now assures us that even though it uprooted common law established by Magna Carta in 1215, the court did not intend to encroach upon the Bill of Rights hammered out some 560 years after that seemingly optional social compact. And lacking the intent to encroach, must not have encroached, right?

Wrong. The garden of legal precedent cannot be so neatly weeded. Ripping out one “weed” always leads to a fraying of the roots of the flowers in the general vicinity. Our esteemed court’s “new and improved” angle on changing medieval common law by using a sentence beginning with “nowadays” will soon metastasize, taking down the Orwellian memory hole much more than just the castle doctrine.

Parental rights may be next. Or the rights of the church, which was a fundamental theme of Magna Carta.

“Here there be,” a seafaring constitutionalist might growl, “monsters.” Yes, judicial monsters of the kind that plow under entire patches of civil liberties-protecting flowers to erect an iron-clad police state. Your home, their castle.

Justice Rucker dissented last May and, to his credit, dissents still. His recent dissent is not rooted in the distant past, but rather points to statutes on the books today. Does he, too, fear a growing police state? Justice Rucker notes that he simply cannot square Ind. Code § 35-42-2-1(a)(1)(B), making it “a criminal offense to commit battery on a law enforcement officer while the officer is engaged in the execution of the officer’s official duty,” and Ind. Code § 35-41-3-2(b), providing persons “the right to use reasonable force … if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling.”

I can help the dissenting justice. It would seem that government agents in Indiana are no longer bound by the laws applicable to mere “persons.” They have been freed from the restraints holding back those of us in the “great unwashed.” The government’s men are, instead, the embodiment of the state, and, as such, above the law when forcing their way into our homes under any pretense whatsoever and to do anything whatsoever. (We can always take them before the Indiana Supreme Court after the fact to complain.)

Perhaps the takeaway the Indiana Supreme Court wishes us to teach our children is this: “Be passive and compliant when given directives by agents of your Indiana government, even in our own castle, and even if they are removing you, my dear children, from our home — for our first allegiance must ever and always be to the glorious State.”

This is the kind of law enacted by totalitarian governments, not the kind of law that governs citizens of a Grand Republic. But then, it is “nowadays,” isn’t it, Justice Steven David?

Oh, please do remember the name Steven David. He is up for a statewide retention vote in November, 2012. Let’s send Justice David home to guard his castle.

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This is a followup to the previous post (here) on the Indiana Supreme Court’s seemingly-statist Barnes decision.  What follows ran as a guest editorial in the News-Sentinel earlier in the week under the heading:  “Court doubles down on intent to build jurisprudence of police state”

Related post:  Is the Indiana High Court acting ultra vires?  Evidence that such just could be the case gathered in 27 successive posts here and as alleged by a nationally prominent East Coast litigator right here:  http://www.archangelinstitute.org/does-indiana-have-a-stalinist-supreme-court/

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Judicial Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.