VA: Stop outside officer’s jurisdiction not subject to suppression

Defendant was seen speeding by a VMI police officer who followed him. The actual stop was off the campus. There was probable cause for the stop and arrest, and, even if the officer was outside his jurisdiction, suppression is not the remedy. Martin v. Commonwealth, 2018 Va. App. LEXIS 128 (May 8, 2018) (unpublished):

Further, assuming without deciding that Officer Beagan lacked the statutory authority to arrest Martin, only a finding of a constitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment would permit any degree of the suppression remedy he seeks. See Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 167, 128 S. Ct. 1598, 170 L. Ed. 2d 559 (2008) (holding that “Virginia law does not, as a general matter, require suppression of evidence obtained in violation of state law”). The exclusionary rule applies only to constitutional violations, not to alleged violations of state arrest laws. See id. at 178. “Absent an infirmity of constitutional dimensions, the ‘mere violation of state statutory law does not require that the offending evidence be suppressed, unless the statute expressly provides for an evidentiary exclusion remedy.'” Cutright v. Commonwealth, 43 Va. App. 593, 600, 601 S.E.2d 1, 4 (2004) (quoting Seaton v. Commonwealth, 42 Va. App. 739, 757 n.7, 595 S.E.2d 9, 17 n.7 (2004)). Though extraterritorial arrests may violate a state statute, they do not warrant the suppression of evidence in most cases. In fact, our Supreme Court has rejected the invitation to adopt a state exclusionary rule for arrests that violate a statutory provision when the detention is otherwise constitutional. See Horne v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 512, 519, 339 S.E.2d 186, 191 (1986).