The wheel is turning.

I understand that the officer got out of hand once the kid decide he didn't want to be arrested but if everyone resisted arrested then the officer could no longer do his job but to those that obeyed him. This sounds ludicrous to me.

If he resisted arrested what is the officer supposed to do?

"They were dressed in plainclothes and were in an unmarked car"

So you will submit to anyone who attacks you or you will deserve to be tortured and killed?

What is a police state? The state where police is more feared than criminals, if you can tell the difference.

More war on drugs issues rearing its ugly head.

Reed is a case where the defense did not request a charge of self-defense be given in the trial court and, without objection, the trial court did not give such an instruction to the jury. At issue on appeal was whether the trial court was required to give such an instruction. In determining whether such a jury charge was required, the court looked at the evidence in a light most favorable to the defendant and found that such a charge was required by the trial court. Based on this, the case was remanded to the trial court for a new trial.

At 2:

Defendant raises the following issues on appeal:

POINT I

THE FAILURE TO INSTRUCT THE JURY THAT DEFENDANT HAD THE RIGHT TO RESIST THE OFFICERS' USE OF UNLAWFUL FORCE REQUIRES REVERSAL OF HIS CONVICTIONS. (NOT RAISED BELOW).

At 12-13:

A self-defense charge is required when "any evidence raising the issue of self-defense is adduced, either in the State's or the defendant's case ." State v. Kelly, 97 N.J. 178, 200 (1984). If such evidence is present," then the jury must be instructed that the State is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the self-defense claim does not accord with the facts; [and] acquittal is required if there remains a reasonable doubt whether the defendant acted in self-defense." Ibid; see also State v. Gentry, 439 N.J. Super. 57, 63 (App. Div. 2015) (holding that a self-defense instruction is required, even when not requested, where the evidence indicates a rational basis for instructing it).

"[B]ecause self-defense must be charged if the evidence, viewed most favorably to the defendant, would support that justification, we focus on ' the evidence that provides a rational basis for a self-defense charge.'" Gentry, supra, 439 N.J. Super. at 63 (quoting State v. Rodriguez, 195 N.J. 165, 170 (2008)).

[...]

Viewed most favorably to the defendant, the evidence supported a finding that the officers used unnecessary and excessive force against defendant, thereby providing a rational basis for a self-defense charge. Therefore, the trial court should have given the jury a self-defense charge as part of its resisting arrest instructions. Kelly, supra, 97 N.J. at 200; State v. Simms, 369 N.J. Super. 466, 472-73 (App. Div. 2004). The failure to instruct the jury that legitimate self-defense is a justification for resisting arrest where the facts reasonably could support that defense constitutes plain error. Simms, supra, 369 N.J. Super. at 473.

The Court noted at 11,

"[I]n our State, when an officer makes an arrest, legal or illegal, it is the duty of the citizen to submit and, in the event the seizure is illegal, to seek recourse in the courts for the invasion of his right of freedom." Id. at 155-56. However, our law also authorizes a civilian's use of force in self-protection while being placed under arrest in certain limited circumstances. "If, in effectuating the arrest or the temporary detention, the officer employs excessive and unnecessary force, the citizen may respond or counter with the use of reasonable force to protect himself, and if in doing so the officer is injured no criminal offense has been committed." Id. at 156; see also N.J.S.A. 2C:3-4(b)(1)(a) (although a person may not use force to resist arrest simply because the arrest is unlawful, he or she may use force if the officer employs unlawful force to effect such arrest). The citizen cannot use greater force in protecting himself from the officer's unlawful force than appears necessary under the circumstances, and he loses his privilege of self-defense if he knows that if he submits to the officer, the officer's excessive use of force will cease. Mulvihill, supra, 57 N.J. at 157.

(although a person may not use force to resist arrest simply because the arrest is unlawful, he or she may use force if the officer employs unlawful force to effect such arrest).

What is officer employed "unlawful force"?

...he loses his privilege of self-defense if he knows that if he submits to the officer, the officer's excessive use of force will cease.

How does he know this?

" Court Affirms Citizens Have the Right to Defend Themselves Against Police Brutality "

Well, the Clan is NOT going to like this!

Will be interesting to hear their arguments against this ruling, and the judges.

The decision is designed to throw doubt across the police, and cause them to consider whether or not to use force.

What is officer employed "unlawful force"?

I do not know. The trial court made no such finding. The case was remanded because the instruction to the jury was incomplete.

Ah! Fake law. Rule by men.

All law is rule by men. And it isn't fake if it's enforced by armed force (which our laws are). Law is the opinion of the lawmaker, nothing more, nothing less.

Law is the opinion of the lawmaker, nothing more, nothing less.

Well.... a little more.

The law is what the judicial branch says it is, regardless of what the legislators said or intended. Either way, it is imperfect men just mucking about.

The court, by raising this defense sua sponte....

It was not raised sua sponte. It was raised as Point I of the appeal.

For the casual reader: "Sua sponte. Of his or its own will or motion; voluntarily; without prompting or suggestion." Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed.

It's quite a bold basis for appeal, really. "Well, we didn't ask for this in the trial, but with 20/20 hindsight we made a mistake and the judge should have raised it on his own."

Disagree. It is the opinion of the most powerful group of men, as Holmes observed.

Powerful is difficult to define. In the USA I would say that the most powerful group of men is any five in agreement on the Supreme Court. And yet a popular President willing to defy them could do so easily, diminishing their real power to effectively zero, for a time.

There's power within the established rules. There's power that is outside of the rules. And then there is the power that comes into being at the advancing edge of what is and what could be.

On any given day, the guy with the gun and the badge makes the law in his local sphere. Sure, he can be challenged later, on another battlefield. But then, so can any other decision under the sun, made by anybody.

On any given day a gang of thugs can scare away the badges wiht guns and turn an area into a "no go zone".

However, even the arms length transactions of the law, in court or on the street, are influenced by natural law. The above arbitrary mess still references the right to self defense, as an ethnic gang exercises a property right not only in territory, but in their cultural norms as well.

Natural rights have more to do with human behavior than physics, but they have a common basis. Just as you can not pass laws against, e.g., gravity, or command people to be prosperous via legislation, you can not ignore natural law when passing judgments or legislation without causing an eventual decline or outright destruction of social health.

The Supreme Court had blown up its credibility with Dredd Scott and precipitated a Civil War. Lincoln undertook steps to preserve the Union, including arresting copperheads and others without trial. The Supreme Court issued decisions requiring their release, and Lincoln ignored them.

Roger B. Taney at one point bitterly wrote in an opinion "...but I understand that the writ of this court no longer runs in the land." He was write. The Supreme Court had precipitated the war, and obeying its dictates would have made it harder for Lincoln to fight the war. He calculated that with all of the Democrat slave states out leaving a pro-war Republican supermajority in Congress, that there would be no effort by Congress to uphold the court against him, and he was right.

So, Jackson disregarded one Supreme Court decision, but Lincoln ignored many rulings. Nobody focuses on Lincoln's example, for a whole set of complicated ideological reasons.

It all comes down to power. No president has had as much power as Lincoln, because the check on President's - the opposition - had mostly seceded, leaving Lincoln's own partisans firmly in control of everything except the Supreme Court. So when Lincoln ignored the court, the court had no means to enforce anything. And were the court to try to make that a big public issue, it would have been accused of treasonous copperhead activity.

There was also Lincoln, who systematically ignored reams of Supreme Court writs of habeas corpus.

To what alleged Supreme Court decision(s) do you refer?

“I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome.” - Chief Justice Taney

“To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” - Abraham Lincoln, in response.

To what alleged Supreme Court decision(s) do you refer?

Alleged?

“I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome.” - Chief Justice Taney

Yes, alleged. Not real.

I am extremely familiar with the quote and where it comes from, and where it does not come from. Ex parte Merryman was not a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was not in session. CJ Taney issued an opinion in chambers.

Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144, 146 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9,487) (Taney, C.J., in chambers).

The proceedings were held in Baltimore, the record was filed in the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, and the handwritten Opinion of CJ Taney was filed as "before the Chief Justice of the United States at Chambers." CJ Taney heard the arguments. Also present was Judge Giles of the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland.

The Baltimore Sun reported the following in its May 29, 1861, issue:

“Chief Justice Taney, upon taking his seat on the bench, said that he desired to state that his associate, Judge Giles, of the Circuit Court, was present with him yesterday by his invitation, because he desired to avail himself of his counsel and advice in so important a case. The writ of habeas corpus was ordered by him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, consequently Judge Giles could not act with him in the case.”

For the casual reader, a legal definition of "in chambers" follows, taken from Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed.:

In chambers. While a common meaning of word "chambers" is room adjacent to courtroom in which judge performs the duties of his office when court is not in session, it also connotes fact that judicial action was taken when court was not in session. Thus, when judge performs judicial act while court is not in session in the matter acted upon, it is said that he acted "in chambers" whether the act was performed in the judge's chambers, the library, at his home, or elsewhere. Morris v. State, 573 P.2d 1130, 1132, 2 Kan.App.2d 34. See also In camera.