{"id":60839,"date":"2025-04-19T07:06:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T12:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=60839"},"modified":"2025-04-19T08:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T13:31:14","slug":"ca6-state-officers-can-enforce-federal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=60839","title":{"rendered":"CA6: State officers can enforce federal law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The search of defendant\u2019s car was based on the alleged federal crime of possession of a small amount of marijuana, and a gun was found, and he was a felon in possession. State officers can arrest for violations of federal law. United States v. Whitlow<\/a>, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9023 (6th Cir. Apr. 16, 2025):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

First, most federal law-enforcement agencies are of recent vintage. Id. at 530. That is why historically enforcement of federal law was often left to state officials. Id. For example, state officials played a major role in enforcing federal laws during Prohibition. See, e.g., Marsh v. United States, 29 F.2d 172, 173 (2d Cir. 1928) (Learned Hand, J.) (“[I]t has been a universal practice of police officers in New York to arrest for federal crimes.”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s more, one scholar has noted that at the time of the Founding, Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike thought that the federal government could affirmatively “make use of the State officers” to enforce federal law. See Wesley J. Campbell, Commandeering and Constitutional Change, 122 Yale L.J. 1104, 1106 (2013) (quoting The Federalist No. 36, at 227-28 (Alexander Hamilton) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961)); see also id. at 1139 (“Anti-Federalists generally preferred state administration of federal laws.”). And although the federal government’s conscription of state officers might amount to unconstitutional commandeering, Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 925, 117 S. Ct. 2365, 138 L. Ed. 2d 914 (1997), the history supports state officers voluntarily enforcing federal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the structure of the Constitution also supports state officers enforcing federal law. As Judge Learned Hand observed in Marsh, the Supremacy Clause “makes all laws of the United States the supreme law of the land,” and thus, it’s no different for a state officer to enforce federal law “as one of its own statutes.” 29 F.2d at 174. So, the fact that federal laws apply within the states supports the authority of state officers to enforce those laws to the same extent as state law. Thoughtful scholars agree. See Kerr, Cross-Enforcement, supra, at 529-30; see also F. Andrew Hessick, Quasi-Sovereign Standing, 94 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1927, 1939 (2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, courts routinely allow state-officer enforcement of federal law in the absence of affirmative federal authorization. See e.g., United States v. Steinman, 130 F.4th 693, 712-13 (9th Cir. 2025) (upholding seizure of vehicle by state officer on grounds that he had probable cause of evidence of federal crime); United States v. Smith, 899 F.2d 116, 118 (1st Cir. 1990) (Breyer, J.) (rejecting defendant’s argument that state officer could not seize weapon in plain view pursuant to federal statute because “we are not aware of any state or federal law that prohibits state police” from doing so (emphasis in original)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth, while the parties don’t identify any Ohio law that would prohibit the search here, state law is likely irrelevant to whether a Fourth Amendment violation has occurred. Indeed, when state law is silent as to what its officers may do, the Supreme Court has made clear that officers may perform a search consistent with the Constitution. For example, in Cooper v. California, the Supreme Court upheld a search without specific state authorization, reasoning that “a search not expressly authorized by state law” can still be “constitutionally reasonable.” 386 U.S. 58, 61, 87 S. Ct. 788, 17 L. Ed. 2d 730 (1967). And in California v. Greenwood, the Supreme Court reiterated that a search’s reasonableness was not dependent on state law. 486 U.S. 35, 43, 108 S. Ct. 1625, 100 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1988). Finally, in the seizure context, the Court has upheld a seizure even though it violated local police rules. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 815, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1996).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The search of defendant\u2019s car was based on the alleged federal crime of possession of a small amount of marijuana, and a gun was found, and he was a felon in possession. State officers can arrest for violations of federal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arrest-or-entry-on-arrest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60839"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60850,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839\/revisions\/60850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}