Court Opinion

ID: 9766072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:31:11.93806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:19.261351
License: Public Domain

*97Justice NEWMAN
dissenting.
For the second time in the course of this protracted litigation, I dissent. The Commonwealth Court has now adjudicated this matter twice, and I fully concur in its determination.
This case concerns the authority of an airport police officer who arrests an intoxicated driver one-half mile off airport property, when the officer saw the driver violate traffic laws on airport property, the violator fled, and did not stop until one-half mile outside of the airport. The finding of the majority, that once the violator crosses a “magic” line at the airport boundary, the officer must allow him to escape, strains credulity.
On January 4, 1997, Laurence A. Miller (Corporal Miller), a duly commissioned Harrisburg International Airport (HIA) police officer, in uniform, and in a marked patrol car, was on duty at the airport when he saw the car of C. Larry McKinley (Appellant) parked on airport property on a ramp connecting the main airport drive to a public highway. He observed the car cross the highway and strike a concrete curb on the opposite side. Concerned about Appellant’s erratic driving behavior, Corporal Miller began to follow the vehicle, staying on airport property. The car then accelerated and crossed the road’s centerline. Not yet in a position to initiate a traffic stop because of the distance between the two cars, Corporal Miller observed Appellant’s car cross the centerline two more times. Corporal Miller then activated his emergency lights, and Appellant’s car continued, before stopping one-half mile from the airport.
When Corporal Miller approached Appellant, he detected a strong odor of alcohol, administered field sobriety tests, which Appellant failed, and arrested him for driving under the influence. Corporal Miller explained the Implied Consent Law1 to Appellant, and Appellant refused to submit to chemical testing, thereby triggering an automatic, administrative license suspension for a one-year period by the Department of *98Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (PennDOT), pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S. § 1547(a), (b).
The trial court overturned the suspension, finding that no specific vehicle violation occurred on the airport premises, and that Corporal Miller lacked extraterritorial arrest powers. However, the en banc Commonwealth Court reversed at McKinley v. PennDOT, 789 A.2d 1134 (Pa.Cmwlth.1999), noting in particular that the trial court erred as a matter of law in finding that Appellant had not committed violations of law on airport property.2 The court also described the extensive authority of HIA police, determining that “officers such as Corporal Miller at the [HIA] at the time of the arrest in question are to be regarded as having the full powers of traditional police in the municipality in which the Commonwealth facility is located.” Id. at 1138.
On allowance of appeal to this Court, the majority determined that Corporal Miller was a police officer for purposes of enforcing the Implied Consent Law, but that he lacked authority to effectuate the extraterritorial arrest of Appellant. McKinley v. PennDOT, 564 Pa. 565, 769 A.2d 1153 (2001). I dissented on the issue of territorial limitation, seeing no legislative purpose that would justify such a nonsensical restriction on an officer who has commenced pursuit at the airport, only to be told that once the violator is one-half mile away, he must abandon his duty. The majority remanded to the Commonwealth Court primarily for it to consider the extraterritorial issue and to resolve the conflict between Horton v. PennDOT, 694 A.2d 1 (Pa.Cmwlth.1997),3 and Kuzneski v. Commonwealth, 98 Pa.Cmwlth. 595, 511 A.2d 951 (1986).4
*99Following remand, the Commonwealth Court reaffirmed its prior disposition, holding that the extraterritorial stop did not undermine Corporal Miller’s status as a police officer with respect to the Implied Consent Law, that it made no difference that the officer did not fully develop “reasonable grounds” for the arrest until after the traffic stop, and that suppression of evidence has no place in civil and administrative licensing proceedings. McKinley v. PennDOT, 793 A.2d 996 (Pa.Cmwlth.2002). The court relied on its decision in Dept. of Transp., Bureau of Traffic Safety v. Evans, 20 Pa.Cmwlth. 403, 342 A.2d 443 (1975), where an officer made an arrest outside of his jurisdiction that resulted in license suspension. “What is important is that factually [defendant] was admittedly placed under arrest, that he was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, that he was requested to take the breathalyzer test and that he refused.” Id. at 445.
The majority now reverses the Commonwealth Court, postulating that with respect to HIA police, “the Legislature has circumscribed their police authority,” and leaps to an astounding conclusion that “we will not infer that [the General Assembly] intended for such officials to be treated as police officers elsewhere.” The majority bases its restrictive view on the statutory grant of authority of airport police to make arrests for violations that they see on Commonwealth property. 71 P.S. § 1791.1.5 However, in doing this, the majority ignores the fact that Corporal Miller did see Appellant’s violations on Commonwealth premises and did begin his pursuit of Appellant there. Instead of looking at what transpired, the majority dissects the incident into two pieces and determines that they are separate and, in effect, unrelated, leaving Corporal Miller with no authority to complete the entire job with which he was charged. Unfortunately, this perspective obfuscates the reality that Corporal Miller was pursuing Appellant be*100cause of traffic violations that he committed on airport property. Pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8953(a),
Any duly employed municipal police officer who is within this Commonwealth, but beyond the territorial limits of his primary jurisdiction, shall have the power and authority to enforce the laws of this Commonwealth or otherwise perform the functions of that office as if enforcing those laws or performing those functions within the territorial limits of his primary jurisdiction in the following cases: (2) Where the officer is in hot pursuit of any person for any offense which was committed, or which he has probable cause to believe was committed, within his primary jurisdiction and for which offense the officer continues in fresh pursuit of the person after the commission of the offense.
The majority fears that affirming the Commonwealth Court “would confer on limited jurisdiction officers statewide authority to stop automobiles and detain drivers for Vehicle Code violations.” ' Given the facts before this Court, this is an exaggerated concern. The view that I express in favoring sustaining an extraterritorial arrest calls for no such result and is limited by the following facts: (1) the airport police officer must be on duty at the airport; (2) he must witness the violation committed on airport premises; (3) he must begin pursuit while inside the boundary of airport property; and (4) the arrest off the property must be contemporaneous with the prior steps.
The result of the majority’s Opinion, I fear, will be to tie the hands of these police officers in performing their critical jobs. Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend this absurd result in the Implied Consent Law or in the description of the wide range of powers assigned to HIA officers. In this day of heightened security concerns, particularly with respect to air travel, we can ill-afford to set this precedent, which tells an airport police officer that he must withdraw from pursuing a wrongdoer who is clever enough, or just happens to exit the airport premises while being pursued by the police.
Justice CASTILLE joins this dissenting opinion.

. Section 1547 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1547(a).

. Appellant violated 75 Pa.C.S. § 3714 relating to careless driving, and 75 Pa.C.S. § 3301 relating to driving on the right side of the roadway.

. In Horton, the court determined that a campus police officer was not authorized to arrest a licensee for driving under the influence outside of his territorial jurisdiction and that the refusal to submit to chemical testing was inconsequential.

. In Kuzneski, the court refuted a driver’s contention that a police officer who made a request for chemical testing was not a "police officer” under the Vehicle Code because he was outside of his territorial jurisdiction.

. This section provides that once an individual is approved by the Governor to serve as a police officer at a Commonwealth building, the officer “shall have and exercise full power to make arrests without warrant for all violations of law which they may witness upon any pari of the premises.... ”