Case Name: William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent, v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY, petitioner, Appellant; STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent
Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Minnesota
Decision Date: 1990-04-06
Citations: 453 N.W.2d 689
Docket Number: Nos. C6-88-1039, C0-88-1148
Parties: William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent, v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY, petitioner, Appellant. STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Western Reporter 2d
Volume: 453
Pages: 689–698

Head Matter:
William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent, v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY, petitioner, Appellant. STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. William Mark PIOTROWSKI, Respondent.
Nos. C6-88-1039, C0-88-1148.
Supreme Court of Minnesota.
April 6, 1990.
Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., Nancy J. Bode, Asst. Atty. Gen., Joel A. Watne, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Minnesota, Public Safety Div., St. Paul, and Teresa L. Joppa, Asst. City Atty., Moor-head, for appellant.
William Kirschner, Fargo, for respondent.
Dean S. Grau, Peter C. Mayrand, Gail Weber, Minnesota Society for Criminal Justice, Minneapolis, State of North Dakota, Nicholas J. Spaeth, Atty. Gen., Robert E. Lane, Asst. Atty. Gen., Bismarck, N.D., Mn. Society for Criminal Justice, Nichols, Raster & Anderson, Minneapolis, amicus curiae.

Opinion:
KEITH, Justice.
These consolidated appeals by the State of Minnesota and the Commissioner of Public Safety present issues concerning the authority of a Minnesota police officer to pursue a driver across the border into North Dakota after observing the driver commit a traffic offense in Minnesota in the officer's presence. In both the DWI prosecution under Minn.Stat. § 169.121 (1986) and the implied consent proceeding under section 169.123, the driver, William Mark Piotrowski, sought to suppress all evidence that was the fruit of the pursuit and stop on the ground that the officer did not have authority to act as he did. In both proceedings the trial court concluded that the stop and subsequent arrest were valid. The court of appeals reversed in both cases. State v. Piotrowski, 435 N.W.2d 573 (Minn.App.1989); Piotrowski v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 433 N.W.2d 124 (Minn.App.1989). We granted the petitions for review filed by the state and the Commissioner of Public Safety.
The facts are stipulated. At 2:35 a.m. on January 1, 1988, Moorhead Police Officer Wicklund saw Piotrowski drive through a flashing red light. Wicklund followed him onto westbound 1-94 heading into North Dakota, activating his red light approximately 4 seconds before Piotrowski crossed into North Dakota. Piotrowski proceeded into North Dakota approximately 100 yards west of the 1-94 bridge before stopping. After requiring Piotrowski to perform field sobriety tests and a preliminary breath test, Wicklund concluded that he was under the influence of alcohol. Wicklund arrested him for violating the Minnesota DWI statute, section 169.121, and radioed a Fargo police officer to come to the scene. Wicklund read Piotrowski the standard Minnesota implied consent advisory and told him that he had a choice of coming back to Minnesota and being charged with DWI here or of remaining in North Dakota and possibly being charged both with DWI there and with DWI in Minnesota. Pio-trowski decided to return to Minnesota. A Fargo police officer arrived on the scene and spoke briefly with Wicklund. Wick-lund then took Piotrowski to the Clay County Law Enforcement Center in Moor-head, where Piotrowski submitted to a breath test, which indicated that he had a blood alcohol concentration of .10 or more.
One issue presented by the appeals is whether a Minnesota police officer is free to continue the fresh pursuit of a fleeing suspect once the suspect has crossed the border into another state. The answer is clear with respect to intrastate fresh pursuit of a driver outside the officer's jurisdiction. We have upheld stops and arrests on two different theories in such cases: one, that the arrests were valid misdemean- or fresh pursuit arrests by police outside their jurisdiction under Minn.Stat. § 629.40 (1988) [State Dept. of Public Safety v. Nystrom, 299 Minn. 224, 225, 217 N.W.2d 201, 202 (1974), and Smith v. Hubbard, 253 Minn. 215, 219, 91 N.W.2d 756, 761 (1958) ]; two, that the arrests were valid as citizen's arrests by the police under Minn.Stat. § 629.37 (1988) [State v. Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d 105, 108-09 (Minn.1983), State v. Filipi, 297 N.W.2d 275, 277-78 (Minn. 1980), and Smith, 253 Minn, at 224, 91 N.W.2d at 764]. See also State Dept. of Public Safety v. Juncewski, 308 N.W.2d 316 (Minn.1981), (holding that when making citizen's arrests outside their jurisdiction police may administer preliminary screening tests).
We deal here with interstate fresh pursuit of a driver by a Minnesota officer. Minnesota, North Dakota and a number of other states have expressly addressed the issue of felony fresh pursuit arrests in the interstate context by adopting the Uniform Law on [Interstate] Fresh Pursuit, codified in Minnesota at Minn.Stat. § 626.65 (1988). That statute, as presently worded, does not address the issue of whether the Arresting officer may do as the officer did here, specifically, obtain the suspect's voluntary agreement to return immediately to the state of the arresting officer, where the chase began. It is clear, however, that if the officer does not give the arrestee the option of agreeing to return immediately to the state where the chase began, under sections 626.65 and 626.66 the proper procedure is for the officer to contact a police officer in the other state and take the ar-restee before a magistrate in that state without unnecessary delay.
The fact that the legislatures of Minnesota and North Dakota have not adopted procedures for interstate fresh pursuit of misdemeanants such as Mr. Piotrowski does not mean, in our opinion, that Minnesota and North Dakota police officers are powerless to pursue misdemeanants across the state border. It is undisputed that the police departments of Moorhead, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota have a longstanding agreement concerning the handling of misdemeanor fresh pursuit arrests and that those procedures were followed in this ease. Specifically, the arresting officer freshly pursues the driver across the border, makes the stop, contacts the police in the jurisdiction where the stop is made, and then does one of three things: makes a citizen's arrest (which involves taking the suspect before a magistrate in that jurisdiction), turns the suspect over to a police officer in that jurisdiction (who makes the arrest), or obtains the suspect's consent to return voluntarily to the state where the fresh pursuit began.
That the State of North Dakota has no difficulty with this procedure is made clear by the North Dakota Supreme Court's decision in City of Wahpeton v. Johnson, 303 N.W.2d 565 (N.D.1981). In Johnson, North Dakota police officers pursued a driver into Minnesota after they observed him commit a minor traffic offense in North Dakota. The driver stopped just after crossing the border into Minnesota. The officers then made observations giving them reason to believe that the driver was under the influence of alcohol. They asked the driver if he would accompany them back to North Dakota. He agreed to do so and was put in the back of the squad car' and taken to North Dakota, where he was formally arrested and given a breath test, the result of which was used to convict him of DWI in North Dakota. The North Dakota Supreme Court reasoned that the North Dakota officers were acting as private citizens while in Minnesota, that they could not have forced the driver to accompany them back to North Dakota, but that they did have the option of either persuading the driver to accompany them back to North Dakota or making a citizen's arrest and turning him over to Minnesota police.
Our case differs only in that here the officer told Mr. Piotrowski he was under arrest before asking him if he would accompany him back to Minnesota. We do not believe that this distinction should make for a different result. As in that case, the officer in this case simply gave the driver a realistic choice: you may voluntarily accompany me back to Minnesota and face charges there or I will turn you over to North Dakota police. We do not see anything wrong with giving a suspect such a choice. Indeed, the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, adopted in Minnesota and North Dakota, provides expressly that "nothing [in the statute] shall be deemed to limit the rights of the accused person to return voluntarily and without formality to the demanding state" and further provides that the formal waiver of extradition procedures provided by the Act "shall [not] be deemed to be [the] exclusive procedure" for accomplishing the voluntary return of the suspect. See Minn.Stat. § 629.24 (1988). By analogy, we believe the choice offered Mr. Piotrowski was a fair choice and that it was in his interest to be given that choice.
The argument is made that the officer could not stop Piotrowski in North Dakota for a Minnesota offense, only for a North Dakota offense, and that he could not stop him for a North Dakota offense because he did not see anything suggesting that Pio-trowski committed a North Dakota offense before he stopped him. In Johnson, the North Dakota Supreme Court said that a North Dakota police officer's fresh pursuit misdemeanor stop in Minnesota was "justified and reasonable" even though it was based exclusively on an illegal left turn observed in North Dakota. Id. at 567. Similarly, Minnesota courts have upheld fresh pursuit misdemeanor stops by Wisconsin police officers in Minnesota based on conduct observed in Wisconsin. Swapinski v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 368 N.W.2d 322, 323-24 (Minn.App.1985), pet. for rev. denied (Minn.1985); State v. Sellers, 350 N.W.2d 460, 462-63 (Minn.App.1984). Any other conclusion would mean in effect that in most cases a driver in Minnesota who commits misdemeanor driving offenses near the border is for all practical purposes free to evade arrest by the simple act of driving across the border when an officer attempts to stop him. The officer could pursue, but not stop, the driver unless he observed a violation within the other state. The officer could contact a police officer in the other state and ask that officer to take up the chase, a procedure that seems to us to be impractical.
In view of our decision, we need not address the hypothetical question of whether or not the exclusionary rule would apply in this case if we had held that the pursuit, stop and arrest of Mr. Piotrowski were in violation of either Minnesota law or North Dakota law. See Schinzing, 342 N.W.2d at 108-09 (refusing to decide whether exclusionary rule should apply to a violation of Minnesota law by a Minnesota officer acting within the State of Minnesota but outside his jurisdiction), and State v. Lucas, 372 N.W.2d 731, 736-37 (Minn.1985) (rejecting conflicts-of-law approach and adopting exclusionary rule approach to issue of whether evidence seized in another state should be excluded in a Minnesota prosecution).
Suffice it to say, we conclude that Officer Wicklund acted lawfully in pursuing and stopping Mr. Piotrowski and in giving him the option of voluntarily accompanying him back to Minnesota, and Mr. Piotrowski received a fair trial in Minnesota in each of the proceedings for an act which occurred in Minnesota. Accordingly, we reverse the decisions of the court of appeals in State v. Piotrowski, 435 N.W.2d 573 (Minn.App.1989), and in Piotrowski v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 433 N.W.2d 124 (Minn.App.1989), and reinstate the decisions of the trial court.
Reversed.
. We note, however, that a bill has been introduced in the current session of the legislature which, among other things, broadens Minn.Stat. § 626.65 (1988) by expressly authorizing interstate fresh pursuit not just of fleeing felons but also of fleeing traffic violators and misdemean-ants. S.F. 1916, and H.F. 2056 First Engrossment, 76th Legislature (in conference committee as of 3-30-90).