An Officer Who Makes a Discretionary Warrantless Arrest is Engaged In Performance of Official Duties

State v. Litzau, Minn.Ct.App., 3/27/2017.  The local sheriff's office went out to arrest Mr. Litzau on a parole violation.  In response to the deputy's news that he was under arrest Mr. Litzau took off.  The deputy caught him anyway and the state charged Mr. Litzau with obstruction of legal process and fleeing a peace officer.  Mr. Litzau argued that an officer is "engaged in the performance of official duties" only when performing a mandatory act.  Because the decision whether to make a warrantless arrest of someone is discretionary then the deputy wasn't "engaged" in arresting him.  

The court of appeals pretty much shut the door on that argument in State v. Shimota, 875 N.W.2d 363 (Minn.Ct.App. 2016), review denied (April 27, 2016).  The state does not have to prove that the deputy was required to arrest Mr. Litzau in order to establish that he was "engaged" and so forth.

Mr. Litzau also said that the statute does not prohibit obstructing one's own arrest.  After all, the statute only prohibits obstructing the arrest "of another person charged with or convicted of a crime." The state had two responses to this: first a procedural claim that Mr. Litzau had forfeited it by not raising it in the trial court; and it's nonsense.  On the forfeiture claim, because Mr. Litzau's argument presents a sufficiency of the evidence question he has not forfeited the claim.  The court does reject the merits of the claim:

Creative though it is, we reject appellant’s argument. Minn. Stat. § 609.50, subd. 1(2), plainly applies to a person who obstructs or resists an officer arresting that person as part of that officer’s official duties.