Resisting arrest in Pennsylvania is a second-degree misdemeanor under 18 Pa. C.S. § 5104, punishable by up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The charge is not triggered by simply refusing to cooperate. Prosecutors have to prove you physically endangered someone or forced officers to use substantial force to take you into custody. That line between passive noncompliance and active physical resistance decides most of these cases.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Chapter 51 Section 5104 – Resisting Arrest or Other Law Enforcement
What the Law Actually Requires
Section 5104 has three elements, and prosecutors must prove each beyond a reasonable doubt. You must have acted with the specific intent to prevent a public servant from carrying out a lawful arrest or other official duty. Your conduct must have either created a substantial risk of bodily injury to the officer or someone else, or required the officer to use substantial force to overcome your resistance. And the person you resisted must have been a public servant performing an official function at the time.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Chapter 51 Section 5104 – Resisting Arrest or Other Law Enforcement
Intent is the element that separates criminal conduct from an accident. A reflexive flinch when an officer grabs your arm lacks the deliberate purpose the statute demands. Prosecutors need to show you knowingly tried to defeat the officer’s control. The statute reaches beyond police officers to any public servant performing official duties, including sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers.2Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Section 5104 – Resisting Arrest or Other Law Enforcement
The word “lawful” also does real work. If the underlying arrest was illegal, the resisting charge built on top of it falls apart. An officer needs either a valid warrant or probable cause before taking you into custody. An arrest that turns out to be mistaken can still be lawful if the officer had an objectively reasonable basis for it, but if there was no factual basis at all, the resisting charge loses its foundation.
What Counts as Resistance and What Doesn’t
Not every act of defiance during an arrest rises to a criminal charge. Pennsylvania courts have drawn a meaningful line between dangerous physical resistance and the low-level friction common during tense encounters. The statute targets conduct on the serious end: swinging at officers, kicking during a takedown, locking your body around a fixed object so multiple officers have to wrestle you free, or any physical struggle that puts someone at genuine risk of injury.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Chapter 51 Section 5104 – Resisting Arrest or Other Law Enforcement
Verbal defiance alone does not qualify. Swearing at an officer, arguing about whether the arrest is justified, or using offensive language is not criminal resistance under this statute. Pennsylvania appellate courts have also held that minor scuffling does not meet the threshold. In Commonwealth v. Rainey, the Superior Court found that a suspect who tried to shake off an officer’s arm without striking, kicking, or pushing had not committed the offense, describing the incident as nothing more than a minor scuffle incident to an arrest.3Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. Commonwealth v. Crosby – Opinion
Going limp is another example. It makes an arrest more difficult but doesn’t create the bodily-injury risk or forceful opposition the statute describes. The practical test comes down to two questions: did your actions put someone in danger of physical harm, and did officers need to use real force to get you under control? If the honest answer to both is no, the charge has a weak foundation.
Penalties for a Conviction
A resisting arrest conviction is graded as a misdemeanor of the second degree. The statutory maximum is two years in prison and a $5,000 fine per count.4Legal Information Institute. 101 Pa. Code 15.66 – Offenses and Penalties First-time offenders rarely receive the maximum. Judges weigh prior criminal history, the severity of the incident, and whether anyone was injured. Probation, community service, or a shorter jail sentence are all common outcomes.
The conviction itself often causes more lasting damage than the sentence. A second-degree misdemeanor appears on background checks and can complicate job applications, professional licensing, and housing. Employers in healthcare, education, and finance routinely screen for criminal records, and a conviction tied to resisting law enforcement raises obvious concerns.
When Resisting Becomes a Felony
Resisting arrest can quickly become the least serious charge on the docket if the situation escalates. When resistance causes actual injury to an officer, prosecutors often add aggravated assault under 18 Pa. C.S. § 2702. Intentionally or knowingly causing bodily injury to a law enforcement officer performing official duties is a felony of the second degree. If the officer suffers serious bodily injury, the charge becomes a felony of the first degree.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Chapter 27 Section 2702 – Aggravated Assault
A separate statute, 18 Pa. C.S. § 5104.1, makes it a felony of the third degree to remove or attempt to remove a firearm or other weapon from a law enforcement or corrections officer acting within the scope of their duties. This charge can arise during the chaos of a struggle even without an initial intent to grab the weapon. Prosecutors only need to show you had reasonable cause to know the person was an officer.6Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Section 5104.1 – Disarming Law Enforcement Officer
The jump from a second-degree misdemeanor to a second- or first-degree felony is enormous. First-degree felonies in Pennsylvania carry up to 20 years in prison. The difference between pulling away from an officer and causing a broken bone can be the difference between probation and a decade behind bars.
Charges Commonly Filed Alongside
Resisting arrest rarely appears alone on a charging document. Prosecutors typically stack it with the original offense that prompted the arrest, plus any additional charges the struggle itself generates. One common companion is obstruction under 18 Pa. C.S. § 5101, which covers intentionally interfering with government functions through force or physical interference. That statute explicitly carves out refusal to submit to arrest and flight from an officer, which are handled under other provisions.7Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 18 Section 5101 – Obstructing Administration of Law or Other Governmental Function
Disorderly conduct, simple assault, and harassment are also common additions depending on what happened during the encounter. Each carries its own penalties, and sentences can run consecutively. Someone who started the night facing a minor summary offense can end up with a stack of misdemeanor and felony charges if the arrest goes sideways.
Defenses That Actually Work
The strongest defense is often challenging the lawfulness of the underlying arrest. If your attorney can show the officer lacked probable cause or a valid warrant, the statutory foundation for the resisting charge collapses because Section 5104 requires a lawful arrest or duty. This defense usually turns on body camera footage, dispatch records, and witness testimony about what the officer knew before initiating contact.
Lack of intent is another strong avenue. If the physical contact was accidental or reflexive rather than purposeful, a key element is missing. Someone who stumbles while being handcuffed or whose arm jerks involuntarily didn’t act with the intent the statute requires. If the prosecution also can’t prove you knew the person was a law enforcement officer, intent becomes much harder to establish.
The minor-scuffling principle from Rainey provides a third path. If the physical contact was minimal and didn’t create a real risk of injury or require substantial force to overcome, it may fall below the statutory threshold. Courts have recognized that some degree of friction during arrests is normal and doesn’t automatically become criminal.3Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. Commonwealth v. Crosby – Opinion
Self-defense against excessive force exists in theory but is extremely narrow. Under 18 Pa. C.S. § 505, you cannot use force merely because an arrest is unlawful, and you cannot claim self-defense if your own resistance provoked the officer’s response. Even when you believe the arrest is wrong, the proper remedy is a courtroom challenge, not a street-level confrontation.
Keeping It Off Your Record
Pennsylvania’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program gives first-time offenders a path to avoid a conviction entirely. ARD is a pre-trial diversion program; upon successful completion of its terms, the charges are dismissed and the arrest record is expunged. Eligibility generally requires no prior misdemeanor or felony convictions, and admission is at the district attorney’s discretion. Whether a particular DA’s office will accept a resisting arrest charge into ARD varies by county, so this is a conversation to have with a defense attorney early.
For those who are convicted, Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate Act allows automatic sealing of second-degree misdemeanors once you have been free of any conviction for an offense punishable by a year or more in prison for ten years, and all court-ordered obligations are satisfied. The sealing happens automatically without a petition, but the ten-year clock is strict. During that decade the conviction stays visible on background checks and can affect employment, housing, and professional licensing.