State v. White
| Decision Date | 21 November 1997 |
| Parties | STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. James T. WHITE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
Carl H. Hadigian, Newark, for defendant-appellant.
Peter Verniero, Attorney General, for plaintiff-respondent (Nancy Peremes Barton, Deputy Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief).
Before Judges PETRELLA, SKILLMAN and WERTHEIMER.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
PETRELLA, P.J.A.D.
After his suppression motion was denied, defendant James T. White entered a retraxit plea of guilty to third degree receiving stolen property ( N.J.S.A. 2C:20-7). White was sentenced to two years of probation, and assessed a Victims of Crime Compensation Board penalty of $50 and a Safe Neighborhood Services Fund fine of $75.
On appeal, permitted pursuant to R. 3:5-7(d) despite his plea of guilty, White asserts that the Law Division judge erred in ruling that police officers from the City of Orange were authorized to conduct a warrantless search of a residence in the City of Newark, notwithstanding their investigation of a crime that had been committed in the City of Orange and the consent of the owner of the residence. Accordingly, White contends that the stolen property seized at the premises should have been suppressed as the fruit of the poisonous tree. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).
The suppression hearing was conducted essentially based on a submission of the following facts to the trial court by the parties. Officers of the Orange Police Department were conducting an investigation of a June 21, 1995 burglary and theft from premises in the City of Orange. During the investigation the police obtained a written statement from a witness that led them to suspect an individual named Eugene Baxter was involved in the incident. Baxter was arrested on July 26, 1995, and gave an inculpatory statement to the police in which he named White as an individual who purchased some of the stolen property from him. 1 Baxter provided the Orange police with White's address and directions to his residence in Newark.
As a result of that statement, the same day the City of Orange police officers went to White's residence in Newark where they identified themselves as law enforcement officers to White's mother. At the time the Orange police officers went to White's residence, they were not accompanied by any Newark police officer or representative of the prosecutor's office. At the officers' request, White's mother consented to a search of her residence and signed a form captioned "ORANGE POLICE DEPARTMENT" and "CONSENT TO SEARCH." 2 The search of the premises yielded several items which the officers suspected had been stolen in the burglary in the City of Orange and those items were seized by the officers.
On July 28, 1995, White gave a statement at the Orange Police Department in which he identified photographs of the subject property as items which codefendant Dwayne Rufus Brown sold to him. White was arrested for receiving stolen property and subsequently pleaded guilty after his suppression motion was denied. At the plea hearing, he said that two men, Baxter and another whom he knew as Balal, had approached him and offered to sell him a computer, an air conditioner, and an answering machine. Although the low price led him to believe that the items might have been stolen, he nevertheless bought them. It was stipulated that the property purchased was of a value in excess of $500.
White argues that the City of Orange police officers lacked statutory authority to investigate and seize property outside of their jurisdiction. This argument was rejected by the Law Division judge on the suppression motion. There was no challenge there or here to the consent given by White's mother for the search on the basis of any form of coercion.
Defendant asserts that N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152, which defines the powers of police officers and constables, essentially should be read to prohibit all police action outside a municipality for which they have been appointed, other than those specified in other statutory exceptions. 3
We reject White's argument. N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152 states:
The members and officers of a police department and force, within the territorial limits of the municipality, shall have all the powers of peace officers and upon view may apprehend and arrest any disorderly person or any person committing a breach of the peace. Said members and officers shall have the power to serve and execute process issuing out of the courts having local criminal jurisdiction in the municipality and shall have the powers of a constable in all matters other than in civil causes arising in such courts.
Our reading of the relevant statutes satisfies us that the Legislature contemplated that police officers may at times be called upon to go beyond the boundaries of their municipality in the performance of their official duties. Indeed, N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152.1 and 40A:14-152.2 implicitly recognize this. N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152.1 gives a municipal police officer authority to arrest for a crime committed in the officer's presence anywhere within the State. See State v. Montalvo, 280 N.J.Super. 377, 381, 655 A.2d 476 (App.Div.1995); State v. O'Donnell, 192 N.J.Super. 128, 469 A.2d 38 (App.Div.1983). N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152.1 extends certain immunities statewide to police acting outside of their municipalities.
Although a crime was not committed in the officer's presence, and hence the provisions of N.J.S.A. 40A:14-152.1 were not triggered, the issue is whether the statute precludes or prohibits extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction in the absence of statutory authorization constituting exceptions to the local jurisdiction. Nothing in the cited statute either expressly precludes on the one hand or authorizes on the other hand a police officer from the jurisdiction in which a crime occurred from conducting an investigation outside of the territorial boundary of the officer's express jurisdiction. Few cases have addressed the issue of police investigations beyond the territorial limits of a police officer's express jurisdiction. Other jurisdictions have considered the issue and have approved such investigations. See Parker v. State, 362 So.2d 1033, 1034 (Fla.Ct.App.1978), cert. denied, 373 So.2d 460 (1979) (); State v. Calderon, 67 Or.App. 169, 678 P.2d 1245 (1984); People v. Harvey, 48 Ill.App.2d 261, 199 N.E.2d 236 (1964).
The Oregon court considered extraterritorial investigations in State v. Calderon, 67 Or.App. 169, 678 P.2d 1245 (1984). In Calderon, the defendant was involved in an accident in Polk County. A deputy sheriff was called to the scene, and arrived there after the defendant was removed to a hospital in Marion County. The sheriff saw beer cans in the car and, based upon that and other evidence, went to defendant's hospital room. The sheriff asked the attending physician to draw a blood sample; defendant later contested this search on several grounds, including a contention that the search exceeded the officer's authority because it occurred outside his jurisdiction. Id. 678 P.2d at 1247-1249. The court specifically considered the narrow question which has been posed to this court:
may an officer from one jurisdiction make a warrantless seizure in another jurisdiction when he does not have the authority to make a warrantless arrest or no local officer is present and assisting in the seizure?
Noting that "[a] warrantless search is by its nature based on the necessity of quick action that does not allow the officer to apply for a warrant ..." the court pronounced that "any police officer may ... conduct a search without a search warrant in any jurisdiction within the state." This was apparently on the basis that all warrantless searches have an exigency element.
The Illinois court was presented with a factually similar case in People v. Harvey, 48 Ill.App.2d 261, 199 N.E.2d 236 (1964). In that case, the defendant's house in Bridgeview was searched upon his wife's consent to Chicago police officers to search the premises without a warrant. Id. 199 N.E.2d at 237. The court summarily dismissed the appellant's argument that this was outside the officers' authority, noting:
The officers were investigating the commission of a crime and had the power to seek the fruits ... especially where their actions and conduct, as shown here, were open and sincere. It was within their powers to seek and protect the property taken in the commission of a crime.
The court in Harvey refused to consider the rights that the defendant would have had if a private citizen had conducted the search. Id. 199 N.E.2d at 239.
Likewise, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a claim that a municipal police officer could not investigate a crime outside the territorial limits of his own jurisdiction in Commonwealth v. O'Shea, 523 Pa. 384, 567 A.2d 1023 (1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S.Ct. 225, 112 L.Ed.2d 180 (1990). In O'Shea Pittsburgh police detectives went to defendant's residence in another township to interrogate him concerning a homicide that occurred in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh detectives did not obtain consent for the investigation in the municipality where defendant resided. The defendant was not home when the detectives arrived, but they identified themselves and explained the purpose of their visit to defendant's brother and sister-in-law who owned the house. They gave the Pittsburgh detectives permission to enter and look around. When they did, the detectives observed in plain view certain items which they subsequently seized. Def...
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