The Volokh Conspiracy - <i>Engleman v. Murray</i> and Extraterritorial Enforcement of Arrest Warrants:

The Eighth Circuit decided a very interesting Fourth Amendment case yesterday involving extraterritorial enforcement of warrants: Engleman v. Murray. The case end up creating some interesting tensions in Fourth Amendment law, so I thought I would blog a bit about it.

First, the facts. Engleman made a 911 call to report a prowler, and he gave the address of the home where he was calling as "24512 Van Fleet Road, Siloam Springs, Arkansas." The call was routed to the Arkansas local police, who learned in the course of the call that there was an Arkansas warrant out for Engleman's arrest. The police ended up going to the home and searching for Engleman to execute the Arkansas warrant. In the home, though, the officers were told that the home was actually inside Oklahoma, not Arkansas. Indeed, believe it or not, it turns out that while the mailbox of the home is in Arkansas — and thus the mailing address of the home is in Arkansas — the Oklahoma/Arkansas line cuts through the property and the home itself is actually located in Oklahoma. (What is this, a law school exam?) The police arrested Engleman under the Arkansas warrant, and Engleman then sued the police for violating his Fourth Amendment rights by carrying out the Arkansas warrant in Oklahoma.

In a divided opinion by Judge Gruender, joined by Judge Beam, the Eighth Circuit concluded that under the originalist framework articulated by the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Moore, the Arkansas warrant was invalid in Oklahoma. Under the English common law, warrants had no force outside their territory:

At the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, a warrant issued in one English county was not valid in another county unless a justice of the peace in that county "backed" the warrant. See William Blackstone, 4 Commentaries *292. "[W]hen a warrant is received by the officer he is bound to execute it, so far as the jurisdiction of the magistrate and himself extends." Id. at *291; see Blatcher v. Kemp, (1782) 126 Eng. Rep. 10, 10 n.a (Maidstone Assizes) ("No constable can act under a warrant, out of his district . . . ."); R v. Chandler, (1700) 91 Eng. Rep. 1264, 1265 (K.B.) ("[W]here a precept or warrant is directed to men by the name of their office, it is confined to the districts in which they are officers."). Under a historical understanding of the Fourth Amendment, the jurisdiction of the issuing judge and the executing officer is limited, and a warrant is not valid if an officer acts outside of that limited jurisdiction. See Lawson v. Buzines, 3 Del. (3 Harr.) 416, 416 (Sup. Ct. 1842) (concluding that "a constable of the city . . . has no authority out of the city limits" to execute an arrest warrant issued in that county); Copeland v. Isley, 19 N.C. (2 Dev. & Bat.) 505, 505 (1837) ("[A]n officer must proceed to arrest at some place actually in his own county . . . .").

The court then concluded that qualified immunity nonetheless applied because under the circumstances, the officers could reasonably believe that they were in Arkansas, not Oklahoma, and therefore had authority to carry out the warrant. (Confusingly, at the end of the opinion the court says that because the officers reasonably believed that they were in Arkansas, they reasonably relied on the warrant and did not violate the Fourth Amendment but that qualified immunity applied because the right was not clearly established — more on this in a moment.) Judge Bye dissented, arguing that the officers should have known they had no authority to do what they did.

A few thoughts and reactions to the case. First, it's fascinating that the court here, and a few other courts recently, are construing Virginia v. Moore as requiring an originalist analysis of the reasonableness of a search or seizure. Lower courts usually ignore methodological advice like that, and instead engage in either reliance on precedent or the balancing approach to reasonableness. Is Moore going to signal a more widespread reliance on originalism in Fourth Amendment law in the lower courts? Time will tell, but it might.

To read the rest of this post, click here.

  Second, the majority was somewhat confused in its doctrinal boxes. First it says that the Fourth Amendment doesn't allow it but qualified immunity applied; later, at the end, it says that the Fourth Amendment wasn't violated and that qualified immunity would apply even if it did. I think the court is just confusing categories at the end of the opinion: I believe the court should have said that the Fourth Amendment was violated by the arrest by a state actor without a valid (territorial) warrant, but that qualified immunity applies either on the ground of a reasonable mistake of fact — the officers thought they were in Arkansas — or on the ground of a reasonable mistake of law — there was no law clearly indicating that extraterritorial warrants had no force — or both. See generally Groh v. Ramirez (Kennedy, J., disenting) (discussing the difference between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law in qualified immunity analysis).

  Third, there is a lot of law on extraterritorial arrests that the court doesn't address, presumably because none of the parties raised it. My understanding has been that the usual rule is that an officer who leaves his own jurisdiction has the rights to arrest of a private citizen, so courts normally look to the "citizen's arrest" law of the extraterritorial jurisdiction to see if the arrest was permitted. See generally State v. Stevens, 620 A.2d 789, 295 n.19 (Conn. 1993) (citing cases).

  If that's right, then the court should have (or at least could have) looked at the case by considering whether a citizen's arrest would have been permitted in equivalent circumstances. Or at least it would have been helpful for the court to square its cases with those or to explain that it thought that Moore required a new path. I suspect this didn't come up because the parties didn't address it, but it's worth noting that there's an additional step here: The fact that the warrant has no force outside the state doesn't necessarily mean that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment in arresting Engleman. (The court does talk about "reasonable reliance" on the warrant, which might suggest some sort of Leon good faith inquiry, but that's only relevant in the suppression context and in any event it's identical to the qualified immunity standard, see Groh v. Ramirez.)

  Finally, in the end I think the court had it right: the Fourth Amendment law here is really pretty murky, and it sounds like there was a legitimate claim of reasonable mistake of fact. In my view, either the reasonable mistake of fact or reasonable mistake of law (or a combination) should be enough to satisfy the qualified immunity standard in this case.

  Thanks to FourthAmendment.com for the link.

	[Orin Kerr, November 18, 2008 at 5:35pm] Trackbacks Engleman v. Murray and Extraterritorial Enforcement of Arrest Warrants: The Eighth Circuit decided a very interesting Fourth Amendment case yesterday involving extraterritorial enforcement of warrants: Engleman v. Murray. The case end up creating some interesting tensions in Fourth Amendment law, so I thought I would blog a bit about it. First, the facts. Engleman made a 911 call to report a prowler, and he gave the address of the home where he was calling as "24512 Van Fleet Road, Siloam Springs, Arkansas." The call was routed to the Arkansas local police, who learned in the course of the call that there was an Arkansas warrant out for Engleman's arrest. The police ended up going to the home and searching for Engleman to execute the Arkansas warrant. In the home, though, the officers were told that the home was actually inside Oklahoma, not Arkansas. Indeed, believe it or not, it turns out that while the mailbox of the home is in Arkansas — and thus the mailing address of the home is in Arkansas — the Oklahoma/Arkansas line cuts through the property and the home itself is actually located in Oklahoma. (What is this, a law school exam?) The police arrested Engleman under the Arkansas warrant, and Engleman then sued the police for violating his Fourth Amendment rights by carrying out the Arkansas warrant in Oklahoma. In a divided opinion by Judge Gruender, joined by Judge Beam, the Eighth Circuit concluded that under the originalist framework articulated by the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Moore, the Arkansas warrant was invalid in Oklahoma. Under the English common law, warrants had no force outside their territory: At the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, a warrant issued in one English county was not valid in another county unless a justice of the peace in that county "backed" the warrant. See William Blackstone, 4 Commentaries 292. "[W]hen a warrant is received by the officer he is bound to execute it, so far as the jurisdiction of the magistrate and himself extends." Id. at 291; see Blatcher v. Kemp, (1782) 126 Eng. Rep. 10, 10 n.a (Maidstone Assizes) ("No constable can act under a warrant, out of his district . . . ."); R v. Chandler, (1700) 91 Eng. Rep. 1264, 1265 (K.B.) ("[W]here a precept or warrant is directed to men by the name of their office, it is confined to the districts in which they are officers."). Under a historical understanding of the Fourth Amendment, the jurisdiction of the issuing judge and the executing officer is limited, and a warrant is not valid if an officer acts outside of that limited jurisdiction. See Lawson v. Buzines, 3 Del. (3 Harr.) 416, 416 (Sup. Ct. 1842) (concluding that "a constable of the city . . . has no authority out of the city limits" to execute an arrest warrant issued in that county); Copeland v. Isley, 19 N.C. (2 Dev. & Bat.) 505, 505 (1837) ("[A]n officer must proceed to arrest at some place actually in his own county . . . ."). The court then concluded that qualified immunity nonetheless applied because under the circumstances, the officers could reasonably believe that they were in Arkansas, not Oklahoma, and therefore had authority to carry out the warrant. (Confusingly, at the end of the opinion the court says that because the officers reasonably believed that they were in Arkansas, they reasonably relied on the warrant and did not violate the Fourth Amendment but that qualified immunity applied because the right was not clearly established — more on this in a moment.) Judge Bye dissented, arguing that the officers should have known they had no authority to do what they did. A few thoughts and reactions to the case. First, it's fascinating that the court here, and a few other courts recently, are construing Virginia v. Moore as requiring an originalist analysis of the reasonableness of a search or seizure. Lower courts usually ignore methodological advice like that, and instead engage in either reliance on precedent or the balancing approach to reasonableness. Is Moore going to signal a more widespread reliance on originalism in Fourth Amendment law in the lower courts? Time will tell, but it might. To read the rest of this post, click here. Second, the majority was somewhat confused in its doctrinal boxes. First it says that the Fourth Amendment doesn't allow it but qualified immunity applied; later, at the end, it says that the Fourth Amendment wasn't violated and that qualified immunity would apply even if it did. I think the court is just confusing categories at the end of the opinion: I believe the court should have said that the Fourth Amendment was violated by the arrest by a state actor without a valid (territorial) warrant, but that qualified immunity applies either on the ground of a reasonable mistake of fact — the officers thought they were in Arkansas — or on the ground of a reasonable mistake of law — there was no law clearly indicating that extraterritorial warrants had no force — or both. See generally Groh v. Ramirez (Kennedy, J., disenting) (discussing the difference between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law in qualified immunity analysis). Third, there is a lot of law on extraterritorial arrests that the court doesn't address, presumably because none of the parties raised it. My understanding has been that the usual rule is that an officer who leaves his own jurisdiction has the rights to arrest of a private citizen, so courts normally look to the "citizen's arrest" law of the extraterritorial jurisdiction to see if the arrest was permitted. See generally State v. Stevens, 620 A.2d 789, 295 n.19 (Conn. 1993) (citing cases). If that's right, then the court should have (or at least could have) looked at the case by considering whether a citizen's arrest would have been permitted in equivalent circumstances. Or at least it would have been helpful for the court to square its cases with those or to explain that it thought that Moore required a new path. I suspect this didn't come up because the parties didn't address it, but it's worth noting that there's an additional step here: The fact that the warrant has no force outside the state doesn't necessarily mean that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment in arresting Engleman. (The court does talk about "reasonable reliance" on the warrant, which might suggest some sort of Leon good faith inquiry, but that's only relevant in the suppression context and in any event it's identical to the qualified immunity standard, see Groh v. Ramirez.) Finally, in the end I think the court had it right: the Fourth Amendment law here is really pretty murky, and it sounds like there was a legitimate claim of reasonable mistake of fact. In my view, either the reasonable mistake of fact or reasonable mistake of law (or a combination) should be enough to satisfy the qualified immunity standard in this case. Thanks to FourthAmendment.com for the link.