Court Opinion

ID: 9729910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:52:24.948432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:02.199684
License: Public Domain

Clifford, J.,
concurring in result. While there are valid policy considerations favoring the majority’s broad view of Port Authority police jurisdiction (and perhaps supporting even more strongly the approach of Justice Pashman), T would respect what I understand to be the legislative intent and affirm the judgment below, without modification, substantially for the reasons given by the Appellate Division, 139 N. J. Super. 561 (1976). The restrictive language of the first sentence of N. J. S. A. 32:2-25, pertaining to the arrest of any person “violating, within the jurisdiction of this State, any order,” etc., quite plainly serves to distinguish a violation of traffic rules, regulations or orders occurring on port facilities within the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey (the only one our statutes could reach) from such a violation occurring within the State of New York.
*348The statute as I read it provides for enforcement by Port Authority police of all laws of this State on the Port Authority facilities mentioned in the statute — and nowhere else. While I might look at the problem differently were the task of establishing policy in this field my responsibility, which of course it is not, I nevertheless can perceive some good and sufficient reasons for the legislature’s desire to impose a severe limitation on the area in which Port Authority police should function, not the least of which is a reluctance to encourage the intromission of these officers in their exercise of police power across the jurisdictional lines of other governmental entities and other law enforcement agencies.
Judge Conford authorizes me to record his concurrence in this opinion.
Clifford, J., and Conford, P. J. A. D., concurring in the result.
For modification and affirmance — Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Mountain, Sullivan, Pashman, Clifford and Schreiber and Judge Conford — 7.
For reversal — None.