I find it interesting that the Texas Penal code seems to contradict U.S. law as in - “Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”The Texas Penal Code is based primarily on the Model Penal Code, which is used predominately with some modifications throughout the U.S. by the States. So, it's not "Texas" ...
How about freedom of speech and your right to disagree (preferably politely) with a police officer as in:
City of Houston v. Hill (1987) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment "protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers."
Originally Posted by austxjr
I'll ask again, what constitutional rights ...?
You have a constitutional right to swat a hornets' nest with your hand too ... exercise it!!!
It's called "freedom to associate" with hornets.
Your "freedom of speech" ends about 3 feet from an officer's face ... and if you want to "piss off the police" ... and be a "freedom fighter" expect to spend time in jail and bonding out .... with attorney fees on a regular basis ....
There is another important right, which is more important that being able to run your mouth .... about your rights ... its the 5th amendment right to be quiet, which is highly recommended by judges, lawyers, and even cops... in fact that all say you don't have to speak .. and most say it's a good idea not to ... unless they are lying to get you to speak.
There is a practical side to quoting all this case law ....
in many instances some person sitting on his ass in jail waiting years to get a result .. and paid thousands of dollars to obtain a ruling that it was ok for him to run his mouth to police.
Most of them .. would probably have gone home to sleep in their own bed had they kept their mouths shut or complied with the police requests, and would have had the discretionary funds to buy some more pussy .. or take some out for entertainment ... instead their lawyer gets to buy more pussy or take some out for entertainment while they hang out in jail or prison until their appeals have been exhausted.
I hope you are not suggesting that 1/3 of the roughly 1 million peace officers in this country are "bad" ... in the sense that they beat the crap out of people and abuse them physically in the process of their contacts with citizens.