“[T]here can be a fine line between reasonable resistance and battery, but that is for the jury to resolve.”
Eric Rasmusen has an excellent point-by-point critique, which I also linked to in my last post, of the Indiana Supreme Court’s September 2011 opinion granting rehearing and “restat[ing] the essential holding” in Barnes v. State. The Court’s original opinion held that the common-law “right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into a home is no longer recognized under Indiana law.” The opinion granting rehearing, on the other hand, holds that the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry into a home is not a defense to the crime of battery on a police officer. (Furthermore, it also appears to suggest that the Indiana statute authorizing “reasonable force . . . to prevent or terminate” the unlawful entry of a dwelling is not a defense to the crime of battery on a police officer, either, on the grounds that battery on a police officer to prevent or terminate the police officer’s unlawful entry of a dwelling is never “reasonable.”)