What are the limits of &quot;Fresh Pursuit?&quot; Generally speaking, state and municipal police are permitted to exercise their arrest power outside the geography of their jurisdiction, so long as they are in &quot;fresh pursuit&quot; of the suspect apprehended. This is to prevent criminals from simply fleeing across state lines to escape criminal liability for their actions. What is the definition of &quot;fresh pursuit,&quot; and where are its limits either in geography, timeliness, or the like? Hypothetical if it helps: As part of an investigation into charges of solicitation for prostitution, a police officer - posing as a prospective client - enters a vehicle the suspect is driving without alerting the suspect to the fact that they are a police officer in order to continue to gathering evidence prior to making the arrest. The evidence that the officer is looking for occurs across state lines. May the officer make the arrest there and then, in the foreign jurisdiction, on the grounds that their investigation constitutes pursuit? Or must they wait until they are driven back to the state they hold jurisdiction in to announce their identity and make the arrest?
This determination is largely a facts and circumstances specific test to be evaluated with little additional legal guidance by the judge or jury faced with evaluating the question (usually a judge in the way that the issue usually presents itself). Like many fairly vague legal standards, it leaves open the possibility that there will be inconsistent rulings on this question in circumstances presenting similar facts.
It would not work. There is apparently a common misconception in Georgia that this would be the case, based on Article IX, Section II, Paragraph III (b)(1) of the Georgia constitution, which says: No county may exercise any of the powers listed in subparagraph (a) of this Paragraph [including police protection] or provide any service listed therein inside the boundaries of any municipality or any other county except by contract with the municipality or county affected. What many people miss is the clause right before that: "Unless otherwise provided by law." Georgia courts have held that the law does provide otherwise when pursuing someone for a traffic offense: The plaintiff contends that when the collision occurred, the policeman-deputy sheriff had no authority to be pursuing the Mitchell car because he was outside the county in which he had a power of arrest. While ordinarily a peace officer has power of arrest only in the territory of the governmental unit by which he was appointed, there are two exceptions to the rule present in this case. Code Ann. s 92A-509, which deals with arrests for traffic offenses, provides by implication that certain officers (including deputy sheriffs) have arrest powers for these offenses outside their appointed territories. City of Winterville v. Strickland, 127 Ga. App. 716, 718, 194 S.E.2d 623, 625 (1972). What that case decided in 1972, the principle was in place well before the boys began their hijinks. I don't know of any state where the law is different, though the answer would be different if the boys crossed into another state.
A state's criminal jurisdiction normally applies to acts committed in that state's territory. So if you consume something in state A, you can't be charged in state B for violating state B's prohibition against consuming that thing. However, if state B has a prohibition against public intoxication, and you enter its territory while intoxicated, you could be charged for violating state B's prohibition on public intoxication. The fact that you're crossing state lines also increases the possibility that the federal government would want to get involved; the location of the federal prosecution could be in either state, although neither state's court system would be involved.
Prior to Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), common law allowed police to use deadly force to effect the arrest of a person suspected of a felony. Even though SCOTUS there held that such a practice violates Fourth Amendment civil rights, I was surprised to find that in some states it is still lawful for police to use deadly force to effect an arrest! Let us examine the most extreme case, which is that the police can legally shoot at you to effect your arrest. As explained here, you are always allowed to resist &quot;excessive force.&quot; If you make it to court, these qualifications (e.g., &quot;necessary&quot; and &quot;excessive&quot;) are ultimately decided based on what a &quot;reasonable person&quot; would have believed in the situation. So if a cop shoots at you, and you &quot;dodge&quot; the bullet, it is possible for you both to be found not guilty of any crime. I.e., the cop can be found to have acted &quot;reasonably&quot; because he believed you were a violent felon and shooting you was the only way to stop you. And you can be found to have acted &quot;reasonably&quot; because you believed you were being subject to excessive force. While this is an interesting hypothetical, in practice of course by the time a cop is shooting at you you are almost certainly going to be charged with resisting arrest. Or, if the cop fired in self-defense (rather than to effect an arrest) you will be charged with a number of far more serious crimes (starting with felony assault, reckless endangerment, and going on from there...).
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia still allow private prosecutions that can result in incarceration. See also a state by state summary here. A bar on conflicts of interest (e.g. having the same lawyer pursue a private prosecution and a civil case against the same defendant) greatly limit the practice in Virginia (see also here). There is an argument that this limitation has federal constitutional force. But see, Cantrell v. Commonwealth, 229 Va. 387 (1985) (analysed here). Is there anyone currently in jail/prison as a result of a private prosecution in one of the states which allow them? If not, when was the last time this occurred. They are very rare, and often limited to misdemeanors. I suspect that there is currently someone in incarcerated on the basis of one, but it isn't easy to determine as there are no one who maintains statistics regarding this. Convictions in private prosecutions have resulted in appellate decisions as recently as 2020 in Virginia. A private prosecution resulting in a conviction with a one-year suspended sentence and one year of probation was affirmed on appeal in 2001 in Rhode Island. In many Rhode Island cases, this involves prosecutions by police officers (see also here noting that this is also common in &quot;New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Virginia, where police officers can act as prosecutors throughout the entire misdemeanor process—from a defendant’s first appearance through a plea or trial&quot;). A (pay per view) 2011 law review article reviews the practice of victim prosecutions in New Hampshire (where incarceration may not be sought), New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
Can a vigilante perform an arrest? This depends on whether the vigilante has the power to perform a citizen's arrest. The rules depend on the jurisdiction (and vary from state to state in the US), but generally the power to perform a citizen's arrest is quite limited. It may include the power to 'pre-empt' an offence if the would-be offender has attempted to commit the offence. However, often the power is limited to particularly serious offences (eg. felonies). There may also be a requirement that the crime occurred in the citizen's presence, or that the citizen was unable to contact the police instead. Is evidence obtained by a vigilante admissible? In the United States, the constitutional exclusionary rule generally prevents evidence from being admitted if the government obtained it illegally. I answered a general question about the scope of the exclusionary rule here. However, the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained illegally by a private individual: Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465 (1921). In Burdeau, the defendant's papers had been stolen and turned over to the government, which proposed to present them as evidence to a grand jury. The Supreme Court said: In the present case, the record clearly shows that no official of the federal government had anything to do with the wrongful seizure of the petitioner's property ... there was no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, as whatever wrong was done was the act of individuals in taking the property of another ... We assume that petitioner has an unquestionable right of redress against those who illegally and wrongfully took his private property under the circumstances herein disclosed, but with such remedies we are not now concerned. However, the exclusionary rule in some states goes beyond the Fourth Amendment. For example, article 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure provides that evidence illegally obtained 'by an officer or other person' is inadmissible. This provision was apparently enacted to deter vigilantes: Bubany and Cockerell, 'Excluding Criminal Evidence Texas-Style: Can Private Searches Poison the Fruit?' 12 Texas Tech Law Review 611 (1981), p 625. Can such evidence be admitted even if the vigilante is not present? Assuming that no exclusionary rule applies, evidence obtained by a vigilante can potentially be admitted through the testimony of a police officer or other witness, subject to the rule against hearsay and the question of reliability. The rule against hearsay means that a police officer cannot give evidence that a vigilante told them that the accused was guilty. Evidence of this kind is not admissible because the accused has no opportunity to challenge the reliability of the source of the information in cross-examination. The rule against hearsay does not apply when the probative value of the evidence does not depend on the truth of the absent vigilante's assertion. If the evidence provided by the vigilante is really 'damning' then it might fall into this category. For example, a vigilante might provide the police with a weapon that has the accused and victim's DNA on it, or tell the police that incriminating evidence can be found at a particular location. A police officer can then give evidence that the weapon was tested and found to have matching DNA, or a search warrant was executed and the incriminating evidence was found. There is no admissibility issue here. However, the fact that the police were tipped off by a vigilante who has broken the law and is not present to face court may cause the jury to reject the evidence as unreliable (ie. it could have been planted).
The police performed an &quot;open air sniff&quot;. Federal and Pennsylvania law differ on this. Under Federal law, this is not considered a search and can be done on any vehicle- usually to get cause for a more invasive search. (Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U. S. 405 (2005).) Under Pennsylvania law, an open air sniff requires reasonable suspicion. This is lower than probable cause- all it requires is that a reasonable person could suspect from the facts that a crime may have or could be committed. Being overly nervous during a routine traffic stop driving someone else's car could potentially be considered reasonable suspicion- as I only have your second-hand account, I won't speculate further. If there was no reasonable suspicion, any evidence found by that search, or evidence found by a search justified by it would be suppressed. Fourth Ammendment rights also apply here. The police cannot detain someone solely for the purpose of waiting for a sniffer dog. They have ways and techniques to waste time for this purpose, but if the stop was concluded before the dog arrived, your husband would be free to leave. Again, I have only your second-hand account so I won't speculate on whether this happened. He should speak to his lawyer about specifics of the case.
If the police are able to attain a warrant that for some reason identifies your room and your things in particular, then they can search your room and seize your things. Ideally the police would have to give the judge or magistrate reasonable suspicion that their target has put some evidence in your room, or that some of your things are evidence relating to the purported crime. In practice, warrants err on the side of generality, so the police can easily get a warrant to search "the whole residence" without contemplating the nuance of which tenants use which rooms. Likewise, when determining what to seize, the police can certainly choose to err on the broad side and seize anything that meets the criteria of the warrant without stopping to determine who owns what. "Respect" of any sort is not a legal factor in the execution of an approved warrant.