Federal Power to Stop Vehicles

[RoadKingTrooper]

Yup, Feds can stop you............................and they don't even have to have their hats on

[westside popo]

Thanks for your assistance everyone.

The paper I am writing is a comparison between jurisdictions with a single level of Law Enforcement (New Zealand for example who have police that are responsible for regular local policing right upto and including activities within the ambit of the FBI, ATF etc) and countries with a multi-faceted approach to law enforcement with multiple levels of jurisdiction like the United States, Australia and several european nations.

Can someone actually tell me specifically what law or section of the US Code or specific state statute allows this (i.e is the power to stop a vehicle granted at the Federal Level or is this something reserved for the states to grant to Federal LEO's?)

Your question is too broad to answer in one post. As others have said it can depend on the federal agency and their scope of authority. The same can be said of some state law enforcement agencies.
When I was in college I had a professor that said if you wanted a copy of all the laws (all 50 states and federal) in the US you would need an entire room (floor to ceiling)to put the stacks of papers and or books.

[Lawfficer]

Can someone actually tell me specifically what law or section of the US Code or specific state statute allows this (i.e is the power to stop a vehicle granted at the Federal Level or is this something reserved for the states to grant to Federal LEO's?)

Like others have said, as long as the federal LEO is authorized to make an arrest then it doesn't matter if the person is in a vehicle or on foot.

18 USC § 3051 Powers of Special Agents of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
(a) Special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as well as any other investigator or officer charged by the Attorney General with the duty of enforcing any of the criminal, seizure, or forfeiture provisions of the laws of the United States, may carry firearms, serve warrants and subpoenas issued under the authority of the United States and make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony.

18 USC § 3052. Powers of Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Director, Associate Director, Assistant to the Director, Assistant Directors, inspectors, and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice may carry firearms, serve warrants and subpoenas issued under the authority of the United States and make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony.

18 USC § 3053. Powers of marshals and deputies
United States marshals and their deputies may carry firearms and may make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony.

28 USC § 564. Powers as sheriff
United States marshals, deputy marshals and such other officials of the Service as may be designated by the Director, in executing the laws of the United States within a State, may exercise the same powers which a sheriff of the State may exercise in executing the laws thereof.

Also, Texas allows some federal LEOs the authority to arrest for various state offenses.

[ICEAGENT]

A vehicle stop is a seizure, albeit temporary in it's nature. Anyone with authority for "search and seizure" can legally conduct a seizure, or in this case a vehicle stop. There doesn't need to be a specific law allowing agents to do vehicle stops.

+1 to yellowreef's entire post. In particular, there is nothing "special" about a vehicle stop. It is simply a seizure, just like cops/agents stopping someone walking down the street. The authority to seize comes from the law of the jurisdiction employing the officer.

Federal agents are empowered to enforce federal laws. State cops (including local/county/other) are empowered to enforce state laws. Some states grant state law enforcement power to feds in their state. So if they have reasonable suspicion of a crime that they are empowered to enforce, they can legally seize the person.

The issue of why the federal system exists of course goes all the way back to the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution granted specific powers to the federal government, everything else falls to the states, including what is called "the general police power" which means the states handle most of what you would consider the traditional law enforcement duties (traffic, basic criminal acts like murder, rape, robbery, burglary, and emergency response/management, etc.)

[yellowreef]

Can someone actually tell me specifically what law or section of the US Code or specific state statute allows this (i.e is the power to stop a vehicle granted at the Federal Level or is this something reserved for the states to grant to Federal LEO's?)

A vehicle stop is a seizure, albeit temporary in it's nature. Anyone with authority for "search and seizure" can legally conduct a seizure, or in this case a vehicle stop. There doesn't need to be a specific law allowing agents to do vehicle stops. There is a limiting factor for this, which is agency policy for that particular agent. As long as fourth ammendment rights are not violated, the stop is a valid seizure and well within the agent's authority. States don't need to grant federal agents seizure authority, as they have their own under federal law. States, however, can grant if they wish the authority to enforce state law. But federal agents can pull people over and make arrests all day long, on violations of federal law without the states having a say in it.

There are specific statutes dealing with mobile conveyances at the federal level within immigration and customs laws, but generally those deal more with the search than the seizure. Some stuff on Border Patrol roving patrol stops and checkpopints (seizures) can be found in the Brignoni-Ponce and Martinez-Fuerte court decisions. Like I said though, there doesn't need to be a specific law allowing for vehicle stops, it's a seizure like any other. As long as the seizure is found to be "reasonable" then it is valid.

Federal agents have different statutory authorities based specifically on the type of laws they enforce, to include search and seizure authority. There really isn't one specific statute that covers authority for "all" federal agents.

[ArkansasFan24]

Yes, i do it all the time, I will cite if on federal property with a federal citation (federal court) and if not I will cite with a state citation (county general session), I have full state peace officer commission in the state of TN.

Are you a TVA officer?

[Ilusiv]

Thanks

Thanks for your assistance everyone.

The paper I am writing is a comparison between jurisdictions with a single level of Law Enforcement (New Zealand for example who have police that are responsible for regular local policing right upto and including activities within the ambit of the FBI, ATF etc) and countries with a multi-faceted approach to law enforcement with multiple levels of jurisdiction like the United States, Australia and several european nations.

Can someone actually tell me specifically what law or section of the US Code or specific state statute allows this (i.e is the power to stop a vehicle granted at the Federal Level or is this something reserved for the states to grant to Federal LEO's?)

[Sleuth]

Beyond what Immigration could do, I was a Customs Officer. I had the authority to stop and search (without a warrant) any vehicle which had nexus (proximity) to the functional equivalent of the border. What the heck does that mean?
Lets say you were at the airport, and parked next to an area where goods were stored prior to clearing Customs. I could stop you, and search your car.

How much of a search? I could search all the people and containers in the car - heck, I could even break down the tires, pry open the door panels, and drop the gas tank.

Our power was specifically identified in (IIRC) Title 18, U. S. Code. I no longer recall the exact section for stopping any vehicle or vessel.

See, your 4th Amendment rights do not begin until you have 'cleared' Customs, and entered 'The Special Customs Territory of the United States'. Many of the Founding Fathers had smuggled goods past the British, so they wrote laws to cover what they had done.

[OliverR]

Yes they can-We've backed up/heard other officers backing up fed officers on stops (El Camino Real here on the coast of CA is a super-super high traffic area for all the cities that are on it, from San Francisco all the way to San Jose and beyond, so we see everyone from Airport Police to Border Patrol, Postal police, to Homeland Security, Park Police, all sorts of them in addition to the transit police agencies and municipal police) and they have full power, although its not really like they go completely out of there way to enforce laws outside of their general patrol area-they do their job, from patrolling the Federal Cemetery's (Golden Gate National) to all Federal Property (Federal Building Complex's, Fed. owned beaches, such as the main beach in SF, it's patrolled by the US Park Police who have a station there)

[Nobody]

I like pie.............

[DARE_SUPPORTER]

Yes, i do it all the time, I will cite if on federal property with a federal citation (federal court) and if not I will cite with a state citation (county general session), I have full state peace officer commission in the state of TN.

[k91king3]

Yes we can..... we could aslo enforce State traffic and criminal laws as well.

[NYCTNT]

If you think its nutty that an ATF or FBI agent can stop a vehicle on a road, wait till you read about what an immigration agents authority can do!

Woah!

You are going to have one big paper there.

[ArkansasFan24]

Yeah, they can conduct felony traffic stops, and/or stop a vehicle in which they reasonably believe their suspect is.

Just to go beyond your question here, many states have legislation providing federal law enforcement officials with the lawful authority to enforce state law. Arkansas, for example, offers this. The federal agency could very well have a policy prohibiting its employees from doing so, and the federal agents would not likely engage in enforcement activities outside of their given realm, however, by law they can.

[BigPat]

Yes.


U.S. v Brigoni-Ponce

http://supreme.justia.com/us/422/873/case.html