Court Opinion

ID: 9871722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 20:41:22.573844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:21.760652
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, V.P.J.:
CONCURRING IN RESULTS:
¶ 1 While the majority reaches the correct result, the rationale limits the Court’s holding in State v. Kieffer-Roden, 2009 OK CR 18, 208 P.3d 471; therefore, I concur in results only. In the present case, the trial court simply failed to follow the precedential nature of Kieffer-Roden, thus the trial court abused its discretion.
¶ 2 A police officer acting outside his jurisdiction may make an arrest for a public offense committed in the presence of the officer just as a private citizen authorized by 22 O.S.2011, § 202. Kieffer-Roden, 2009 OK CR 18, ¶ 10, 208 P.3d at 473; Nickell v. State, 1987 OK CR 260, ¶ 8, 746 P.2d 1155, 1157; Williams v. State, 1962 OK CR 80, ¶ 20, 373 P.2d 91, 95-96; Moran v. State, 1951 OK CR 150, 95 Okla.Crim. 6, 237 P.2d 920, 922.
¶3 Pursuant to § 202, a private citizen may arrest another “for a public offense committed or attempted in his presence.” A public offense is any act forbidden by law and punishable under law. 21 O.S.2011, § 3. Without doubt, a citizen is only limited to the use of force which is reasonable and necessary to effect the arrest. It is absurd that a police officer would have less authority to make a citizen’s arrest when the officer happens to be wearing the uniform of his profession and/or driving an official vehicle while outside the jurisdiction of his commission. This fact is even more absurd in this day and age when an officer may live outside the city limits or county boundaries where the officer is employed.
¶4 The Kieffer-Roden opinion does not contradict those cases involving officers conducting seizures and searches outside their jurisdiction where the rales of arrests by citizens are not invoked. See United States v. Sawyer, 2004 OK CR 22, 92 P.3d 707 (unauthorized request for consent to search); Phipps v. State, 1992 OK CR 32, ¶ 9, 841 P.2d 591, 593 (officer only suspicioned that a drug transaction had occurred before acting under color of law and receiving consent to search); Staller v. State, 1996 OK CR 48, ¶¶ 10-11, 932 P.2d 1136, 1139 (officer acting as a private citizen was unauthorized to buy drugs). This Court’s cases only limit the officer’s authority to act as a private citizen; the cases do not reduce the authority below that of a citizen. The increased power that a uniform and/or police vehicle brings to bear, so that an arrested person complies with the “citizen’s arrest,” does not invalidate that arrest. Further, as this Court has previously held, the officer, acting a citizen, must comply with the same rules as a non-officer citizen in making an arrest.
¶ 5 In addition to my disagreement to the treatment of Kieffer-Roden, I also disagree with the use of clear dicta in the analysis of the exclusionary rule and the rule of inevitable discovery, neither of which is necessary to the holding of the opinion.