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State v. Garbutt12/29/2001
errule our decision in State v. Armstrong, 148 Vt. 344, 533 A.2d 1183 (1987), where we decided that the state does have such jurisdiction. Finally, defendants argue that they should have been given Miranda warnings before the police officers questioned them or asked them to perform field sobriety tests. We review motions to suppress de novo. State v. Graves, 170 Vt. 646, 646, 757 A.2d 462, 463 (2000) (mem.).
Defendants first argue that the state police did not have jurisdiction to enter the border inspection stations and arrest them without a warrant. The border inspection stations are federal enclaves created when Vermont ceded land to the federal government for the use of the Department of Customs. Under article 1, section 8, clause 17 of the federal constitution, the federal government retains exclusive jurisdiction over the enclaves unless Congress specifically reserves jurisdiction to the states. Paul v. United States, 371 U.S. 245, 263 (1963). Congress has provided for state jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute persons for violation of state law when those persons are within a border inspection station by enacting 8 U.S.C. § 1358, which provides:
The officers in charge of the various immigrant stations shall admit therein the proper State and local officers charged with the enforcement of the laws of the State or Territory of the United States in which any such immigrant station is located in order that such State and local officers may preserve the peace and make arrests for crimes under the laws of the States and Territories. For the purpose of this section the jurisdiction of such State and local officers and of the State and local courts shall extend over such immigrant stations. 8 U.S.C. § 1358.
Vermont has enacted a related statute, 1 V.S.A. § 551, which retains jurisdiction for Vermont over lands sold or ceded by the state to the federal government for the uses set out in article 1, section 8, clause 17 of the federal constitution. At the time defendants were arrested, 1 V.S.A. § 551 provided in relevant part:
oncurrent jurisdiction is reserved for the execution upon such lands of all process, civil or criminal , issued by the courts of the state and not incompatible with the cession. 1 V.S.A. § 551 (1999), amended by 1999, No. 160 (Adj. Sess.), § 1 (Supp. 2000).
In 1999, the legislature amended the statute to read as follows:
oncurrent jurisdiction is reserved for the execution upon such lands of all process, civil or criminal , issued by the courts of the state and not incompatible with the cession, and for the enforcement of state law in the federal enclave along the border of Canada and Vermont by [certified] law enforcement officers . . . . 1 V.S.A. § 551 (2001).
The revised statute went into effect on May 29, 2000. Defendants concede that under the revised statute, which merely codifies our holdings, the state now has the power to make warrantless arrests in border stations. The crux of defendants' argument, however, is that before the amended statute went into effect, the state had not reserved the power to make warrantless arrests because the Legislature had required process "issued by the courts of the state." 1 V.S.A. § 551.
We recently decided this question adversely to defendants in State v. Graves, 170 Vt. at 647-48, 757 A.2d at 464. In reaching our decision that police could make warrantless arrests within the federal enclave, we noted that § 551 "uses inclusive language to make clear the broad scope of the State's concurrent jurisdiction," id. at 647, 757 A.2d at 463, and construed the section to "mean that the exercise of law-enforcement authority must be governed by the procedures e
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