Opinion ID: 1817484
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: wisconsin law and the privilege to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest

Text: [4] ¶ 21. We first consider whether, with the adoption of the state constitution, Wisconsin recognized a privilege to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest. As noted above, article XIV, section 13 of the Wisconsin Constitution preserves the English common law as it existed at the time of the American Revolution until modified or abrogated. We agree with Ms. Hobson that the common law privilege to forcibly resist unlawful arrest is no exception to this constitutional mandate. We conclude that Wisconsin has recognized this privilege since achieving statehood. ¶ 22. Next we consider whether the legislature has modified or abrogated this privilege. Ms. Hobson makes a limited statutory argument on which to ground this privilege. She first cites Wis. Stat. § 939.48, the current version of the statute recognizing the privilege of self-defense and defense of others. [12] At oral argument, Ms. Hobson's counsel argued that the privilege to resist an unlawful arrest is a subspecies of the statutory privilege of self-defense. She argued that Wis. Stat. § 939.10 [13] also protects the common law privilege to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest, and based on Wis. Stat. § 939.45(6), [14] Ms. Hobson's privileged conduct is a defense to any prosecution based on her conduct. We disagree that the legislature, by expressly codifying several defenses, has also codified the privilege to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest in the absence of unreasonable force. ¶ 23. Indeed, our early statutes did not codify the common law right to resist an unlawful deprivation of liberty in the absence of unreasonable force. In statutes enacted shortly after Wisconsin achieved statehood, the legislature recognized that a homicide would be justifiable, excusable, or manslaughter, if committed in self-defense as resistance to actual or perceived attempted murder, great personal injury or the commission of a felony against that person. [15] Cases interpreting the early statutory self-defense privilege distinguish that privilege from one justifying the right to resist an unlawful arrest. See, e.g., Anderson v. State, 133 Wis. 601, 615, 114 N.W. 112 (1907) (construing sec. 4366, Rev. Stat. (1898) and concluding that it was not prejudicial error to charge that an ordinary arrest without violence, although a restraint of liberty, is not the great personal injury contemplated by the statute in the resisting of which one may be justified in committing homicide, whether the attempted arrest was legal or not); see also Imperio v. State, 153 Wis. 455, 459, 141 N.W. 241 (1913) (without directly referring to statute, court concluded that an officer's conduct, although not technically correct in arresting without a warrant, did not justify or excuse homicide by defendants in their attempt to escape, when the defendants knew the officer's official capacity). [5] ¶ 24. Nor has the current version of the self-defense statute codified the common law privilege to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest. None of the published opinions applying the current self-defense statute includes an unlawful arrest, without unreasonable force, within the statutory term unlawful interference with his or her person. [16] Instead, those cases uniformly concern the actual or perceived threat of physical harm as the unlawful interference with the person asserting the privilege. For example, in Maichle v. Jonovic, 69 Wis. 2d 622, 627, 230 N.W.2d 789 (1975), this court confirmed that it is crucial to the defense (of self-defense) that the actor had a reasonable belief that his life was in danger or that he was likely to suffer bodily harm. In another opinion, this court recognized that the privilege of self-defense rests upon the need to allow a person to protect himself or herself or another from real or perceived harm when there is no time to resort to the law for protection. State v. Brown, 107 Wis. 2d 44, 318 N.W.2d 370 (1982). In that case, the defendant violated the traffic speed limit statute because of what he perceived to be threatening driving by the operator of another vehicle, which turned out to be an unmarked police car. The Brown court held that if the law enforcement officer's conduct caused the actor reasonably to believe that violating the law was the only means of preventing bodily harm to the actor or another, the actor could claim the defense of legal justification. [17] ¶ 25. Finally, we consider whether the privilege to resist an unlawful arrest has been modified or abrogated by our own common or judge-made law. One month after the United States Supreme Court decided Di Re, the privilege to resist unlawful arrest was first mentioned by the Wisconsin courts in State v. Gibbs, 252 Wis. 227, 31 N.W.2d 143 (1948). The Gibbs court referred to the privilege in passing, while directly addressing the question of whether an officer, without a warrant, has cause to arrest a person merely because that individual refuses to consent to a search of his person. As part of that discussion, the court favorably cited Di Re for the undoubted right to resist an unlawful arrest. Gibbs, 252 Wis. at 234. The primary issue confronting the Gibbs court was the reverse of that posed to the Di Re court. Neither case answers the question of whether Wisconsin common law has modified or abrogated the privilege to resist an unlawful arrest. ¶ 26. The privilege to forcibly resist unlawful arrest in the absence of unreasonable force was again mentioned, but not modified or abrogated, in State v. Reinwand, 147 Wis. 2d 192, 433 N.W.2d 27 (Ct. App. 1988). There, the court's discussion recognized an ongoing contraction in the common law privilege to resist an unlawful arrest: [s]ince Mendoza [State v. Mendoza, 80 Wis. 2d 122, 258 N.W.2d 260 (1977), where the defendant claimed self-defense in resisting a police officer's alleged use of excessive force], there has been a trend toward limiting the common law right to resist an unlawful arrest. By 1984, seventeen states had done so by statute or supreme court decision, and several federal appellate courts generally deny such a right [citation omitted]. But whatever may be the status of the privilege in Wisconsin today, we need not decide that issue, for the evidence in this case was insufficient to justify submitting any instruction on self-defense. Id. at 199-200. ¶ 27. Reinwand implicitly addressed the statutory right of self-defense, as described above. Id. at 200. Reinwand relied on Mendoza, which analyzed Wis. Stat. § 939.48. As recognized in Reinwand, self-defense codified in § 939.48, is separate from the common law right to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest. A citation by the Reinwand court to a New Jersey supreme court decision suggests that the common law privilege to resist an unlawful arrest had already been abrogated. [18] But that citation, without more, is not controlling. ¶ 28. While Wisconsin courts have mentioned the right to forcibly resist an unlawful arrest, they have not had the opportunity to apply it to circumstances as presented by the case at bar. The State argues that because no state case law directly adopts this privilege, the common law right to violent self-help has not existed in Wisconsin. We disagree, and conclude that the common law privilege has existed in Wisconsin, by virtue of article XIV, § 13 of the Wisconsin Constitution, until today. ¶ 29. Nothing in our statutes or case law demonstrates that this common law privilege has been, until now, modified or abrogated. We agree with the State that this court may adopt or refuse to adopt such a privilege. See State v. Esser, 16 Wis. 2d 567, 581, 115 N.W.2d 505 (1962). However, our judicial recognition of such a privilege only makes explicit what our state constitution has already generally incorporated.