Court Opinion

ID: 9643803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:40:51.780143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:04.040464
License: Public Domain

Shea, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion, which vacates the judgment and orders a new trial. I would not, however, reach the issue of whether there remains in this state a common law right to use reasonable force to resist an unlawful entry into a home for the purpose of making an arrest. The defendant has never claimed any such privilege, either in the trial court or before us on appeal, and we do not ordinarily decide questions not properly raised. Practice Book §§ 3063, 3060F. Contrary to the assumption of the majority, neither of the two requests to charge1 presented by the defendant can fairly be read to have alerted the trial court to such a claim. The first request pertains to the necessity of obtaining a warrant before arresting the defendant in his home in the absence of exigent circumstances. The second request, *446based upon State v. Anonymous (1977-5), 34 Conn. Sup. 531, 547, 375 A.2d 417 (1977), states that if the officers had entered their home illegally, the defendants could not be found guilty of interfering with them for the reason that interference under such circumstances would not have occurred while the officers were in the performance of their duties.
I would follow our precedents that an officer is not in the performance of his duties, as required by General Statutes § 53a-167a for the offense of interference with a police officer, when he is acting illegally. State v. Cesero, 146 Conn. 375, 379, 151 A.2d 338 (1959); State v. Anonymous (1977-5), supra, 547. This interpretation of § 53a-167a would preclude a conviction for violating that statute of a defendant who “obstructs, resists, hinders or endangers” an officer but would not bar a conviction for an assault or other violent crime committed upon an officer which has been charged. Section 53a-167a does not require the use of force upon an officer to support a conviction for interference but applies even to nonviolent forms of resistance. It is not, therefore, inconsistent with the prohibition of General Statutes § 53a-23 against “using physical force to resist an arrest” to allow those whose resistance to an illegal arrest takes a peaceful form to avail themselves of the defense that the officer was acting illegally and was not, consequently, in the performance of his duties. State v. Anonymous (1977-5), supra, 547. Because it was error for the trial court not to charge as requested that the police officers were not in the performance of their duty if they were acting illegally, I concur in the result.
The recognition by the majority of a right to use reasonable force to resist an illegal entry, as a surviving vestige of the common law right to oppose an illegal arrest which General Statutes § 53a-23 has eliminated, can be reconciled with the letter of that *447statute but not its policy. The persuasive reasons given by the majority for the abrogation of the common law rule apply with equal force to the use of violence to prevent an illegal entry. Where violence may be involved, modern society prefers the courtroom to the street or the home as the arena for determination of the legality of police conduct. We should, therefore, discourage violent conduct in the household as well as in public places which may expose to serious injury peace officers as well as those they seek to arrest. In sanctioning the use of a vaguely defined “reasonable force” to protect home and hearth, the majority opinion appears2 to make the defense of the illegality of police conduct available for many violent crimes which may be perpetrated upon an officer whose judgment is later found to be erroneous.

 See footnote 5 of the majority opinion.

 In footnote 7, the majority opinion seems to narrow the scope of the right to use reasonable force to resist an illegal entry to the charge of interference with a police officer in violation of General Statutes § 53a-167a and suggests that “fwjhere the defendant is charged with a different crime, a claim of a right to resist an unlawful arrest might be more difficult to reconcile with General Statutes § 53a-23 . . . .” Such a restriction on the availability of the defense of resisting an illegal entry would achieve the same result as that advocated in this concurring opinion. Since the broader language of the majority opinion itself has not been modified to reflect the limitation implied by the footnote, I assume the majority have not retreated from their recognition of a common law right to use reasonable force to resist an unlawful entry as a possible defense to a violent crime.