The law on resisting arrest should be changed. The law is that even if the arrest is unlawful, a person can still be found guilty of resisting arrest. Here is a link to a video on YouTube where a police officer, without any provocation, attacked a person and then charged the person with resisting arrest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ The person on the bicycle, who was attacked by the police officer, was charged with resisting arrest. If you think that is an isolated incident, then search “police brutality” or “police excessive force” on YouTube. It may take an entire day to watch all the videos on YouTube involving excessive force. In the vast majority of cases, the “suspect” is charged with the crime of resisting arrest. In Illinois, juries are instructed that even if the arrest was unlawful, the defendant cannot resist the unlawful activity of arresting officer. So, in other words, the defendant must acquiesce or cooperate without protest with the violation of his civil rights. If a man were to do nothing more than push away a police officer who is unlawfully beating him, then the man has committed the crime of resisting arrest. Obviously juries cannot be told that a person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. If that were the law, then criminals would have an excuse to fight with police officers and they would avoid prosecution by merely stating that they believed the arrest was unconstitutional. Still, the current jury instruction results in a person having to go along with a violation of their rights, which seems equally flawed in logic. Perhaps a better solution would be to not have a jury instruction at all. Juries should be able to acquit a person when the only thing that person did was to not cooperate enough with a police officer who was engaged in unlawful activity.
There is a fine balance between protecting the rigths of the police from corrupt people and protecting the rights of the people from corrupt police. Most of us non-corrupt people like ignore the fact that there are corrupt police out there, but the fact is that a few bad apples CAN spoil the whole bushel.
ReplyDeleteI agree Amy. I think that the bad apples are spoiling the reputation of police officers. The majority of officers are honorable and trustworthy. Unfortunately, they are being tarnished by the outrageous acts of some of their fellow officers. I have read several comments following videos on youtube of excessive police force. Some of the comments show a hatred of police because of the actions of the few spoiling the bushel for the rest.
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