The Connecticut General Assembly

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH

January 10, 1994 94-R-0173

TO:

FROM: Pamela Lucas, Research Attorney

You asked what extraterritorial powers Connecticut police have.

SUMMARY

Connecticut local police officers have explicit statutory authority to act outside their jurisdictions to: (1) execute arrest warrants for offenses committed within their respective jurisdictions, (2) make warrantless felony arrests, and (3) make valid felony or misdemeanor arrests when they are in immediate pursuit of an offender. State police have explicit authority to act in all parts of the state.

For actions involving execution of process, such as those pursuant to a warrant, the statutes generally authorize local police officers to act in their respective towns, cities, or boroughs (CGS § 7-281). However, when an officer possesses an arrest warrant arising out of an offense allegedly committed in the town, city, or borough in which the officer's police force is located, he or she may execute the warrant in any part of the state (CGS § 7-281).

The statutes authorize local officers to make warrantless arrests in their respective precincts for misdemeanor offenses committed in their jurisdiction, when the person is taken in the act or based on the speedy information of others (CGS §54-1f(a)). They authorize warrantless felony arrests, however, without requiring that the arrest or felony occur in the officer's jurisdiction. Presumably a warrantless felony arrest beyond the officer's jurisdiction would not violate the law, but a warrantless misdemeanor arrest beyond his or her jurisdiction would. A local officer may, nevertheless, go outside his or her precinct into any part of the state to effect a valid misdemeanor or felony arrest when he or she is in immediate pursuit of an offender (CGS § 54-1f(c)).

State police officers face no intra-state jurisdictional limitations. They are authorized to act in any part of the state with the same powers that local police officers have in their respective jurisdictions (CGS § 29-7).

There have been very few case decisions involving challenges to a search, seizure, or arrest based on the extraterritorial nature of a police officer's conduct. In none of them has the court held that the asserted jurisdictional violation amounted to a constitutional violation.

STATUTORY PROVISIONS

Execution of Process by Local Police Officers

The statutes do not explicitly restrict the general authority of local police officers to execute criminal process to their respective towns, cities, or boroughs. Such a restriction may be inferred, however, from: (1) the specific grant of authority to execute a felony arrest in any part of the state, pursuant to a warrant, for an offense allegedly committed in the officer's jurisdiction; and (2) the more general grant of authority to execute criminal process in the officer's town, borough, or city.

Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 7-281 authorizes active members of any town, city, or borough police force to execute criminal process in their respective towns, cities, or boroughs to the same extent as constables in their respective towns. (CGS § 7-89 grants constables the same power in their towns to serve and execute lawful process directed to them as sheriffs have in their respective counties. CGS § 6-31 in turn authorizes sheriffs to execute in their counties all lawful process directed to them.) Police officers may execute a warrant of arrest in any part of the state, when that warrant arises out of an offense allegedly committed in the town, city, or borough in which their police force is located (CGS Sec. 7-281).

Warrantless Arrests and Immediate Pursuit by Local Officers

Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 54-1f(a) authorizes a peace officer in his or her precinct to arrest, without previous complaint or warrant, any person for any offense in the officer's jurisdiction, when the person is taken in the act or on the speedy information of others. Subsection (b) authorizes a state or local police officer, or a chief inspector in the division of criminal justice, to arrest without a warrant any person who the officer has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or is committing a felony. Unlike subsection (a), it contains no explicit restriction for offenses committed within the officer's jurisdiction, nor does it limit the officer's arrest power to his or her precinct. In State v. Kuskowski, 200 Conn. 82, 86 (1986), the Connecticut Supreme Court noted that subsection (a) pertains to warrantless misdemeanor arrests. Read together, the Court observed, subsections (a) and (b) indicate that a local police officer does not violate CGS § 54-1f by making a warrantless felony arrest beyond the territorial jurisdiction of his or her police department.

Pursuant to subsection (c), local police officers, state capitol security officers, sheriffs, and certified constables who are in immediate pursuit of an offender, may go outside their respective precincts to effect an arrest that would be valid under CGS § 54-1f. The offender may then be returned in the custody of the officer to the precinct in which the offense was committed.

State Police Authority

The state police, upon its own initiative or when requested by any person, may assist in or assume the investigation, detection or prosecution of any criminal matter or violation of the law (CGS § 29-7). State police officers have "in any part of the state, the same powers with respect to criminal matters and the enforcement of the law relating thereto as sheriffs, policemen, or constables have in their respective jurisdictions" (CGS § 29-7).

Inter-Municipal Requests for Police Assistance

Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 7-277a authorizes towns, cities, or boroughs to request police assistance from other towns, cities, or boroughs when "necessary to protect the safety or well-being of [the] municipality." Thus, police officers are implicitly authorized to act extraterritorially when their conduct is in response to such an inter-municipal assistance request.

COURT DECISIONS

There have only been a few decisions involving challenges to a search, seizure, or arrest on the basis that a police officer acted outside his or her geographical jurisdiction. In none of the decisions has the court found a constitutional violation on that ground.

In State v. Cosgrove, 181 Conn. 562 (1980), defendants contended the trial court erred in denying their motion to suppress evidence of drugs, asserting that the underlying search was illegal because it was executed by Stamford police in the town of Greenwich. In fact, the warrant had been executed by four Stamford officers and two Greenwich officers. The Court concluded that the evidence need not be suppressed because it was immaterial whether others unauthorized to execute the warrant accompanied those who were authorized to do so (id. at 589-90). The Court similarly rejected the defendants' claim that the execution of the return of the search warrant by Stamford officers invalidated the search, reasoning that the return was merely a ministerial act and did not negate the fact that Greenwich policeman participated in the warrant's execution.

In State v. Kuskowski, 200 Conn. 82 (1986), the Court rejected the defendant's claims that the warrantless search of his automobile in Bridgewater by Brookfield police officers violated the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution and article first, section seven of the Connecticut Constitution. The defendant's car had been parked in a public boat launch area. The Court stated that the officer, "no less than any other citizen, had a right to stand beside the defendant's car and peer in." When the officer saw the defendant passed out with a lit propane torch in his lap, she had every reason to rouse him and put out the fire. In doing so, she saw cocaine and drug paraphernalia in plain view. According to the Court, this gave her probable cause to seize and search the car without a warrant (id. at 85).

The Court also rejected the defendant's claims that his arrest was unlawful because the Brookfield police were beyond their jurisdiction. According to the Court, CGS § 54-1f permits a warrantless felony arrest, based on probable cause, beyond the territorial jurisdiction of an officer's police station.

In State v. Miller, 29 Conn. App. 207 (1992), aff'd, 227 Conn. 363 (1993), the defendant challenged the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, claiming that the gun at issue was the product of an extraterritorial, and thus illegal, investigation, stakeout, Terry stop, and warrantless seizure of his car in Hartford by West Hartford police. (The crime, a supermarket robbery, occurred in West Hartford, and the West Hartford police determined the getaway car was registered to a Hartford resident.) The Appellate Court rejected Miller's claim that the investigation and seizure of the car was illegal, "[b]ecause we discern no material variance between either the facts or legal arguments in State v. Kuskowski, supra, and those in this case." The court declined to decide whether the extraterritorial Terry stop of the defendant was illegal, since the seizure of the gun was not the fruit of the stop of his person, but of the valid seizure of the car upon probable cause to believe it was the getaway car in the armed robbery.

On appeal, the Connecticut Supreme Court rejected Miller's claims that the West Hartford officers violated article tenth, section one, and article first,sections seven and nine of the Connecticut Constitution by their actions in Hartford. (The Court noted that it need not decide whether the Terry stop was invalid, because even if it were unconstitutional, no evidence flowed from it.)

Article tenth, section one, the home rule provision of the Connecticut Constitution, provides in pertinent part that "[t]he general assembly shall by general law delegate such legislative authority as from time to time it deems appropriate to towns, cities and boroughs...." Miller contended that this provision prohibits a municipality from exercising any authority not expressly permitted by statute, and that it was violated by the officers' conduct which exceeded the legislature's delegation of municipal authority in several statutory provisions. The Court, however, was unpersuaded, and held that the constitutional provision on home rule was not violated because it only limits a municipality's legislative powers but does not apply to a municipality's other powers.

The Court similarly rejected Miller's contention that because the officers' search and seizure violated statutory constraints on their territorial authority, it was per se unreasonable under article first, section seven. The Court stated that it was unpersuaded that the prohibition on unreasonable searches encompasses the legislature's territorial restrictions on police conduct, since legislative enactments "do not necessarily define the outer boundaries of constitutional projections." The Court further observed that Miller had pointed to nothing in the text, purpose, or legislative history of the relevant statutes on police conduct to indicate the legislature intended to equate the prohibited conduct with unreasonable searches and seizures under article first, section seven.

Finally, the Court rejected Miller's contention that the officers' extraterritorial conduct violated article first, section nine, which provides that "[n]o person shall be arrested, detained or punished, except in cases clearly warranted by law." According to the Court, Miller had not demonstrated that the provision's prohibition of restraints on personal liberty also included a prohibition on illegal investigations, stake outs, and warrantless automobile searches.

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