Opinion ID: 172792
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Officer jurisdiction and the Fourth Amendment

Text: Bowling alleges that Rector exceeded his statutory authorityand thus acted outside his jurisdictionin seeking and executing the search warrant. We have not decided a Fourth Amendment case in which a limited-authority officer such as Rector acted outside his jurisdiction over particular subject matters under state law. However, we have held that a search conducted pursuant to a warrant obtained outside the requesting and executing officer's territorial jurisdiction does not constitute a per se violation of the Fourth Amendment. Green, 178 F.3d at 1106. Instead, we evaluate such a search by the well-established federal constitutional standards for evaluating the validity of search warrants. Id. We will conclude that Fourth Amendment requirements are satisfied where . . . officers obtain a warrant, grounded in probable cause and phrased with sufficient particularity, from a magistrate of the relevant jurisdiction authorizing them to search a particular location, even if those officers are acting outside their jurisdiction as defined by state law.  Id. (emphasis added, footnote omitted); see also Sawyer, 441 F.3d at 895 (applying federal test for determining validity of consent to search where Kansas police officers acted outside of their statutory jurisdiction and in violation of Oklahoma law in obtaining defendant's consent to search his business premises, and concluding that this inquiry [did] not require an analysis of the legal parameters of the Kansas Officers' jurisdictional authority under state law). The Supreme Court's recent decision in Virginia v. Moore reinforces this principle. In Moore, several Portsmouth, Virginia, police officers stopped and arrested David Lee Moore for the misdemeanor offense of driving with a suspended license. 128 S.Ct. at 1601. Under Virginia law, the officers were not authorized to arrest Moore for driving with a suspended license except under circumstances that did not apply in his case. Id. at 1602. State law dictated that the officers should have issued Moore a summons rather than arresting him. Id. When they searched Moore incident to this arrest made in excess of their statutory jurisdiction, the officers discovered crack cocaine and cash on his person, and he subsequently was charged with possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. Id. Reversing the Virginia Supreme Court, the Court held that regardless of the legality of the officers' conduct under state law, that conduct must be evaluated by Fourth Amendment standards for warrantless arrests and searches pursuant to such arrest. Id. at 1607-08. Because those standards dictate that warrantless arrests for crimes committed in the presence of an arresting officer are reasonable under the Constitution, and that officers may perform searches incident to constitutionally permissible arrests in order to ensure their safety and safeguard evidence, Moore's arrest in excess of the officers' statutory authority nonetheless passed Fourth Amendment muster. Id. at 1607. [T]he arrest rules that the officers violated were those of state law alone, and . . . it is not the province of the Fourth Amendment to enforce state law. Id. at 1608. While Green, Sawyer, and Moore are not precisely on point with the case before us, we think the principle articulated by those casesthat for Fourth Amendment purposes, the conduct of officers acting in excess of their statutory authority must be tested by traditional Fourth Amendment standardsapplies with equal force here. We thus agree with the approach of the Eighth Circuit in United States v. Freeman, 897 F.2d 346 (8th Cir.1990), a case with facts fairly similar to those alleged by Bowling. In Freeman, Thomas Ley, a special agent for the Missouri Department of Revenue, was authorized to investigate possible violations of state law related to automobile tampering, but was not statutorily designated a state peace officer. Id. at 346-47. Under the Missouri statutes, only peace officers and prosecuting attorneys may apply for search warrants. Id. at 347 n. 2 (citing Mo.Rev.Stat. § 542.276.1). Despite his lack of statutory authority to do so, Ley applied for a warrant to search certain premises, submitting a supporting affidavit establishing probable cause for the search. Id. The affidavit identified Ley as a special agent with the state Department of Revenue, but neither it nor the warrant application form informed the judge reviewing the application that Ley was not a peace officer empowered under state law to seek a search warrant. Id. On the basis of Ley's application and affidavit, the state judge issued a warrant directed to any peace officer in the state of Missouri. Id. With the assistance of a state police officer and a county deputy sheriff, Ley searched the named premises and seized evidence that he later identified on the official return and inventory he completed. Id. After a federal grand jury indicted Anthony Freeman based on the evidence seized in this search, Freeman moved to suppress on the ground that because Ley was not statutorily authorized to apply for or execute a search warrant, the search was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. Id. The Eighth Circuit held that the record as a whole demonstrates that no constitutional violation occurred [because] the affidavit supporting the search warrant provided probable cause to search and the search warrant described with particularity the place to be searched and the items to be seized. Id. at 350. The court characterized Ley's conduct in excess of his statutory jurisdiction as an example of procedural violations which do not implicate the constitutional values of probable cause or description with particularity of the place to be searched and items to be seized. Id. at 348. As the Supreme Court did in Moore and we did in Green and Sawyer, the Eighth Circuit thus tested by traditional Fourth Amendment standards the actions of an officer acting in excess of his statutory authority. Applying the reasoning of Moore, Green, Sawyer, and Freeman, we turn to an evaluation of Rector's conduct by well-established federal constitutional standards for evaluating the validity of search warrants, Green, 178 F.3d at 1106.