Police Protected Illegal Searches

Police Protected In Illegal Searches
July 15, 2003
By LYNNE TUOHY, Courant Staff Writer

The state Supreme Court has rewritten the rules on when a person may be prosecuted for a crime committed in response to an illegal entry or search by police of the person's property.

In its ruling released Monday, the court tempers the right of a person to object to an illegal search with the need to protect law enforcement officers from physical harm and threats of harm.

"Although wrongfully on the premises, officers do not thereby become unprotected legal targets," Connecticut Justice Joette Katz wrote for the unanimous court, quoting from an Oregon ruling.

"Indeed, there is a great risk of escalating violence when citizens are permitted to use, or threaten to use, force to respond to unlawful police conduct," Katz wrote. "This concern is especially true considering that law enforcement officers typically are equipped with firearms, and that a violent response to an illegal search may well result in a tragic outcome."

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