Definition
In criminal law, resisting refers to the act of opposing, obstructing, or using force against a law enforcement officer or other authorized official in the lawful performance of a legal duty — most commonly during an arrest, but also during service of process or execution of a court order. The term appears most frequently as a shorthand for the offense of resisting arrest, though the underlying conduct can also support charges of obstruction, battery on an officer, or interference with process depending on jurisdiction and circumstances.
Three related but distinct meanings arise in legal contexts:
1. Resisting arrest: The criminal offense of knowingly opposing or obstructing a peace officer who is making, or attempting to make, a lawful arrest. Most modern statutes require that the officer be acting lawfully and that the defendant know the person is an officer.
2. Resisting process: Opposition to the service or execution of civil or criminal process — such as a subpoena, writ, or warrant — by a court officer or authorized agent. Bouvier's treats this as the primary cross-reference under RESIST, pointing toward PROCESS.
3. Resisting by force or violence: A qualified, aggravated form in some jurisdictions, distinguishing passive resistance (noncompliance) from active physical opposition. The distinction affects both the offense charged and the degree of force an officer may lawfully use in response.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Present participle and gerund of resist — broadly, opposing or withstanding something.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Making resistance; opposing; as, a resisting medium."
The common meaning is broad and neutral: any opposition to any force or condition. The legal meaning is far narrower and carries criminal consequences. A person who argues with a police officer, goes limp, or pulls away may or may not be legally "resisting" depending on jurisdiction, the lawfulness of the underlying arrest, and the specific statutory language in force. Researchers should not import the common-sense meaning of opposition into statutory or case analysis without first examining the controlling definition.
Common Confusion
Resisting arrest and obstruction of justice are frequently conflated but are distinct offenses. Resisting arrest applies to physical or active opposition at the moment of an arrest. Obstruction is broader, covering interference with investigations, judicial proceedings, and official functions that extend well beyond the arrest encounter. Similarly, resisting is sometimes confused with battery on a law enforcement officer: the two charges can arise from the same conduct but require different elements, and the presence of force typically elevates the offense.
A second source of confusion is passive versus active resistance. Many jurisdictions require some form of active physical opposition; mere verbal refusal or going limp does not constitute resisting in those jurisdictions. Others criminalize any knowing noncompliance. Statutory language controls, and the distinction is litigated frequently.
Why It Matters in Research
The term resisting almost never stands alone in statutes or indictments — it appears as a component of a compound offense name (resisting arrest, resisting an officer, resisting with violence). Researchers should identify the exact statutory offense charged rather than working from the word itself.
Historical sources, including Bouvier's, emphasize resisting process as the paradigm case — opposing the service of writs and court orders. Modern usage has shifted decisively toward resisting arrest as the primary application. A researcher working in nineteenth-century materials will encounter the process-centered meaning far more often than the arrest-centered one. The two should not be read interchangeably.
Jurisdictional variation is substantial. Some states require that the underlying arrest be lawful as an element of the offense; others do not. The common-law rule — that a person had a right to resist an unlawful arrest — has been abrogated by statute in most but not all U.S. jurisdictions. This evolution is invisible in historical dictionary sources, which reflect the older rule, and must be tracked through modern statutory and case law.
Corpus researchers connecting resisting to use-of-force doctrine, qualified immunity, or Fourth Amendment excessive force claims should note that the lawfulness of the officer's conduct and the lawfulness of the defendant's resistance are analytically entangled in those contexts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treats RESISTING as a cross-reference to RESIST and PROCESS, reflecting the classical common-law framework in which the paradigm offense was interference with the machinery of court process rather than opposition during arrest. This is consistent with an era in which formal writs and process service were the primary occasions for official coercion. Bouvier's entry does not address the modern statute-based offense of resisting arrest as a standalone crime, nor does it discuss the common-law right to resist unlawful arrest or its erosion — a significant gap for researchers using that source to interpret nineteenth-century materials.
No major divergence between historical dictionary sources is present here, because only Bouvier's covers the term directly. The relative silence of historical dictionaries on resisting arrest (as opposed to resisting process) is itself informative: it marks the offense as primarily a twentieth-century statutory development rather than a deep common-law category.
Jurisdictional Note
Whether the lawfulness of the underlying arrest is an element of resisting arrest varies by state statute and has been the subject of ongoing legislative and judicial revision. The common-law privilege to resist an unlawful arrest has been abolished by statute in the majority of U.S. jurisdictions, though pockets of the older rule survive. Researchers working across jurisdictions should not assume uniformity.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Resisting Arrest and Obstruction of Law Enforcement (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)