Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plummer v. State

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Despite Glrx's interesting analysis, there is no consensus that the case is not notable enough for inclusion. Sandstein 07:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Plummer v. State

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Nominating page that I created for deletion (reason: notability) as discussed at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard#Plummer v. State (of Indiana). Also see Rescue list: Plummer v. State --Guy Macon (talk) 19:46, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (although it needs a lot of expansion, and some simple copy-editing to clarify just who was the cop and who was shooting at whom). This case is either notable because it establishes a principle, or else (per discussion at WP:N/N) it either didn't establish a principle, but is today being widely cited as if it did. Either way, it seems that notable attention is being paid to it and WP ought to be offering a decent statement of just what it does mean. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:48, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, for sure, frequently discussed court case, text it easily available, so easy to expand D O N D E groovily Talk to me 22:53, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article still does not reference any reliable secondary sources and should be deleted based on lack of notability WP:Notability. I conducted my own research to try to determine notability but I did not find even one law review article mentioning the case. No one seems to have come up with a news article or book. Many cases are cited by other cases but I am told that does not create notability. Otherwise, there could be millions of articles in Wikipedia about court opinions.Coaster92 (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No shortage of space in Wikipedia. Every court case that ever made it into university level textbooks should have an article, as well as those with ample coverage otherwise. Dream Focus 02:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This court case is clearly notable. Click on Google news and Google book search at the top of the AFD, and see the thousands of results that appear. Dream Focus 00:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I nominated this page (which I created) for deletion because I had serious doubts as to whether the thousands of search results were enough to establish notability or whether it requires things like law review articles. After carefully considering the arguments, and looking once again at the huge number of people who refer to a mangled version of this online, I am going to come down on the side of keep. I am not withdrawing my nomination; I want the AfD to run its course to give the delete/keep ratio a chance to swing the other way. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What? You created it on 19 February 2012‎ and then nominated it for deletion on 17 March 2012‎, which makes no sense at all to start with. You then tag it for attention of the Article Rescue Squadron. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Rescue_list#Plummer_v._State] And then you state you changed your mind, and don't think it should be deleted, but aren't withdrawing your deletion nomination. That doesn't make any sense at all. If you just wanted to have a chat about whether it was notable or not, get some opinions, you could've gone to the law wikiproject and started a discussion there. Dream Focus 02:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that you have completely mischaracterized my position. Going from undecided to decided is not "changing your mind." I believe that my decisions were and are appropriate giving the reaction this got at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard#Plummer v. State (of Indiana) and then the reaction it got here. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, appears quite historic. — Cirt (talk) 04:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for its notoriety -- it's cited by many litigants, for issues of self defense and unlawful arrest to resisting arrest. Cleanup is needed. Bearian (talk) 00:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Clicking on Google news and books turns up no news articles or books that I saw, only other court cases. On the article talk page, Girx and Fladrif questioned whether these are reliable sources here and I haven't yet found a Wiki policy about using court cases as reliable secondary sources. One thing for sure, if an editor is going to use court cases as sources, he/she will very likely have to analyze the cases and essentially create original research in order to advance the position of the article. The cases are not like news articles or books.Coaster92 (talk) 04:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/merge. The AfD attack is WP:N.

The Google scholar search finds many different Plummer v State court cases, but the hit counts are misleading. There are two cases with that name in Indiana (ours plus one other), one in Nevada, and one in GA. Citations to the 1893 Indiana case only appear to be in other court opinions, a terse mention in ALR, and the AG of Wyoming making a mere citation (i.e., no explanatory text) in his annotated Wyoming statutes of 1910. Maybe another AG taking notice of the case shows WP:N, but that seems thin. In addition, I think some of the legal citations to Plummer support the alternate fact pattern: a peace officer can escalate force in a lawful arrest.

Although it is an entertaining case, it appears to have a limited impact on society. (Compare Kolender v. Lawson overturning law against loitering.) My memory is hazy, but I think the fact pattern is something like this: the town was going to do something to Plummer's property, so he decided to track down the town council members and threaten them with a gun. His exploits met with some success. He was told the town would not act, so he started walking home while still carrying his gun. His protest was over for the day. He wasn't trespassing. He wasn't threatening anyone anymore. A quirk of Indiana law is that drawing a gun is a misdemeanor, but just carrying a gun in one's hand is not. The peace officer did not see the gun being drawn. A peace officer without a warrant and (through the peculiar nature of Indiana law) without probable cause and without following normal arrest procedures, struck Plummer from behind, knocked the gun away, and then started shooting at Plummer. Plummer regained his weapon and killed the officer. Plummer was convicted, but on top of all the other confusion, some bad jury instructions were issued. The Indiana Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

The case does not say anything particularly astounding. It's still good law, but it is narrow law. It's a poor case for illustrating the limits of resisting arrest because Plummer's protest was over, he was on his way home, and there was no probable cause for arrest. The issue of the level of force that may be used in a lawful arrest is also clouded by the arrest being unlawful. John Bad Elk v U.S. has a similar probable cause problem (but it is mentioned at the Self-defense (United States) article). How many protesters are walking around with a drawn gun in a state where that is legal? Even without any of the quirky legal and murky factual issues, Plummer's conviction would have been overturned on the bad jury instruction. The case is a good story because it is so far out the norm, but it is fundamentally a story about a citizen (1) behaving badly, (2) killing a law enforcement officer who tried to disarm a crazy person carrying a gun, and (3) possibly getting off without any punishment.

At this point in time, we can write a synopsis of the case from the actual opinion but little else. If we are lucky, there might be some secondary source articles covering the case in some 1897 Indiana newspapers. Right now, I don't know of any conventional secondary sources telling us that this case is important or had a significant impact on the public at large.

Consequently, I don't see a clear path to WP:N yet. I'm not following the law project, so there might be other methods of determining notability for cases. High schools, for example, are considered inherently notable. It may be that state supreme court decisions are inherently notable, but WP:Notability (law) is a failed proposal. This case would have met WP:CASES under that proposal because it is an opinion of the highest court in Indiana. That proposal did not see much support.

I haven't Shepardized the opinion, but IIRC, another editor claims it has about 30 citations in other cases. Maybe that confers notability, but I'm ignorant on any such debate.

Failing WP:N, the case might be mentioned in the resisting arrest article.

Glrx (talk) 00:29, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indiana law is also different today: citizens may not resist a peaceful but unlawful arrest:

At common law, a person was privileged to resist an unlawful arrest. See Gross v. State, 186 Ind. 581, 583, 117 N.E. 562, 564 (1917). Our courts, however, have uniformly accepted that this common law rule is outmoded in today's modern society. See Fields v. State, 178 Ind. App. 350, 355, 382 N.E.2d 972, 975 (1978) (holding that a private citizen may not use force or resist a peaceful arrest by one he knows or has good reason to believe is an authorized officer performing his duties, regardless of whether the arrest is legal or illegal); accord Dora v. State, 783 N.E.2d 322, 327 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied; Shoultz v. State, 735 N.E.2d 818, 823 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000), trans. denied. In 1976, the Legislature, recognizing this modern trend, enacted the resisting law enforcement statute, Indiana Code section 35-44-3-3, which makes it a crime to “(1) forcibly resist[], obstruct[], or interfere[] with a law enforcement officer or a person assisting the officer while the officer is lawfully engaged in the execution of the officer‟s duties[.]” Additionally, Indiana Code section 35-42-2-1(a)(1)(B), makes battery, if committed upon a law enforcement officer, a Class A misdemeanor. Id. (“A person who knowingly or intentionally touches another person in a rude, insolent, or angry manner commits battery, a Class B misdemeanor. However, the offense is[] (1) a Class A misdemeanor if . . . (B) it is committed against a law enforcement officer . . . .”).

Indiana v Ricardson (Indiana Supreme Court 2010) http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/06031001fsj.pdf at 7:

Plummer is still good for a violent arrest, but that application is narrow. Glrx (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The suggestion that decided cases cannot be reliable sources appears to me to be untenable. James500 (talk) 11:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.