Appellate Decision Rejects Defense to Willful Resistance When a Peace Officer is Performing Their Duties

Case Alert  
By Ray Hill  
Professor Emeritus, Santa Rosa Junior College  

Knowledge that a law enforcement officer is in lawful performance of duty (148 (a)(1) P.C.) 

Facts: The defendant drove his car into an apartment wall of two sleeping neighbors. Neither party was injured. An adult son angrily confronted the defendant in the carport. The defendant stated, “Don’t call the cops.” He appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. The adult son replied, “You could have killed my dad” and a physical fight ensured between the two. At one point, the defendant pulled out a pocketknife. Deputies were dispatched to a possible ADW. Upon arrival, they announced themselves, issued commands to stop fighting and seized the defendant from behind. The defendant struggled and actively fought three deputies who were attempting to restrain him and apply handcuffs. At one point the defendant appeared to lose consciousness, fell to the ground, struck his head on the pavement and was returned to a seated position. He was ultimately restrained. A defense expert witness testified at trial that the defendant suffered from a schizoaffective disorder, depression and cannabis use disorder. 

The defendant challenged his conviction for resisting arrest on grounds that because of his schizoaffective condition, the fact his back was toward the deputies when they initially approached (he thought he was being attacked again by the adult son), and confusion caused by hitting his head on the ground, that he was unaware that he was resisting law enforcement officers.   

Held: 2DCA ruled there was substantial evidence supporting the conviction for resisting arrest. The corpus of 148(a)(1) P.C. has three elements: 1) willfully resisting, delaying or obstructing a peace officer, 2) who is engaged in the performance of his/her duties; and 3) a person knows or reasonably should know a person is a peace officer in the performance of his/her duties.  

The court rejected the defendant’s theories of not knowing he was being confronted by a peace officer. In this case, deputies arrived in marked police cars with lights and sirens. They were in uniform, ....