When and how can a person resist an unlawful arrest?

Question

This is not a question of tactics, or whether or not this is advisable.

I'm hoping it's legal under at least some narrow circumstances. Is it legal to resist an unlawful arrest of an on-duty police officer in NH if:

• the officer, by his previous actions, gives any reasonable person reason to believe he will unlawfully cause grievous bodily damage or death and the arrestee feels in fear of un lawful grievous bodily damage (for instance he violently assaults a peaceful protester without any notice, then says "You're next!" while running to another peaceful protester)
• the officer is affecting a clearly unlawful arrest (for instance an arrest for quietly filming in a time place and manner where filming is clearly legally allowed like off to the side of the lobby of a federal post office) and for no other reason
• The officer claims he has the right to do illegal things to you like pepper spray you in order to force information or confession
• The officer murders his civilian wife then affects an arrest of a civilian witness for the explicitly stated reason that he witnessed the crime
• The officer has no legal jurisdiction to affect an arrest

If it's ever legal to resist an unlawful arrest, to what extent can it be legally resisted and can onlookers ever obstruct an unlawful arrest?

EDIT and expansion of first sentence:

I'm well aware that generally an illegal arrest cannot legally be resisted when a reasonable officer would also be mistaken to have affected such an arrest. Please don't explain how it's a bad idea because 'officers can be equally mistaken about the legal facts and legal applications but they get a privileged legal status to affect an arrest. ' I know if an officer can legally arrest someone for reasons he is mistaken for. I know there are different legal standards for knowledge and evidence, de facto or de jure, regarding a civilian resisting arrest and police affecting an unlawful arrest. I know all that, but I don't know what the standards are in NH.

Answer 1

New Hampshire law makes it illegal to resist arrest, "regardless of whether there is a legal basis for the arrest." RSA 642:2.

You can likely defend yourself against excessive force used in or after the arrest, but you may not resist the arrest itself.

Answer 2

Few days ago, I read about a judge describing a weird case: A man took a turn in his car without indicating. He turned out to be a "Freeman of the land" feeling he shouldn't cooperate with the police whatsoever, got arrested, then got arrested for resisting arrest.

This went to court, defending himself with the usual "freeman of the land nonsense", saying the judge had no jurisdiction etc. etc. The judge, although pretty annoyed with his nonsense, figured out that in this state turning without indicating is only an offence if you affect other drivers, and there were none. So the police officers, clearly seeing something they believed illegal which wasn't in fact illegal, had no right to arrest him. Therefore he couldn't be charged with resisting arrest.

Now here we had an illegal arrest because what they police not only thought he was doing, but 100% saw him doing, was in fact not illegal. If they spot me handing a powdery white substance to you, which is powder sugar, then an arrest would be legal because they had reasonable grounds to believe that I was handing you cocaine. They were wrong, but the arrest is lawful even if they are wrong, so resisting arrest is illegal even when I turn out to be innocent of the original offense.

So to your question: You can resist an unlawful arrest. But it is very hard for you to decide correctly that an arrest is unlawful. And a lawful arrest, even if it shouldn't have happened, is legal and resisting is illegal.

In the example with the murdered police officer's wife: If that police officers tells another officer that you are a suspect, then the other officer won't suspect that he is lying, and the other officer arresting you would be lawful.