VA. COURT RULES ON RESISTING DETENTION

It Rejects Argument That Reasonable Force Is OK

The right to use reasonable force to resist an illegal arrest goes back
hundreds of years, but does the right extend to detentions?

No, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled yesterday. It reinstated a conviction
for assaulting a police officer that the Virginia Court of Appeals had
reversed.

The case began in July 1999, when Suffolk police officer K.I. Fromme
received an anonymous tip that two men might be dealing firearms in a
drug-dealing area. Fromme went to the area, approached John H. Hill Jr. and
told Hill that he wanted to pat him down.

Hill allowed Fromme to pat his left side but placed his hand in his right
pants pocket. When Fromme grabbed his right hand, Hill turned and ran,
hitting the officer in the face with his open hand.

Fromme and two other officers forced Hill to the ground, handcuffed him and
seized cocaine from him.

While the case was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an anonymous
tip such as the one Fromme received cannot be the basis for a detention.
Hill nevertheless was convicted of assaulting the officer.

In setting aside the conviction, the intermediate appellate court relied on
the long-standing right to resist an illegal arrest.

But writing for a unanimous state Supreme Court, Justice Barbara Milano
Keenan said the reasons for allowing resistance to an illegal arrest do not
apply to a detention.

"Because a detention is, by its nature, a brief intrusion on an
individual's liberty, the provocation resulting from an illegal detention
is far less significant than the provocation that attends an illegal
arrest," Keenan said.

She noted, as an example, that an arrest becomes part of a criminal record
while a detention does not.

Extending the right to resist an unlawful detention "would only serve to
increase the danger of violence inherent in such detentions," she said.

In another case yesterday, the high court set aside the 1998 first-degree
murder and related firearm convictions of George Junior Green, also known
as George Green Jr.

The court ruled that Green's attorney was ineffective because he did not
object to an instruction that allowed the Petersburg Circuit Court jury to
convict Green of murder even if it had a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.

Green was sentenced to 28 years in prison on the murder and firearms counts
in question and an additional 37 years on related charges on which the jury
was properly instructed.

The attorney general's office argued that the misstatement in the one
instruction was such an obvious mistake, in light of the proper instruction
on the other counts, that the jury could not have been confused.

The Supreme Court disagreed, noting that the concept of proof of all
elements of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt is so important a part of
a defendant's constitutional rights that it cannot be assumed.

Green was charged in the death of Karla E. Pettiford, a cook who was killed
in a pool-hall robbery.