 John Bad Elk v. United States , 177 U.S. 529 ( 1900 ) , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that an individual had the right to use force to resist an unlawful arrest and was entitled to a jury instruction to that effect . In 1889 , a tribal police officer , John Bad Elk , shot and killed a police officer named Frank Selvy . Bad Elk was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison . He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court , arguing that the trial judge had erred in refusing to instruct the jury that a person had the