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Fresh Pursuit

Information

Many times someone will ask how can an officer that is not in their proper jurisdiction make an arrest? Usually, the answer is the Doctrine of Fresh Pursuit. Fresh pursuit is often seen when a law enforcement officer believes a crime has been committed in their jurisdiction and does not have the time or the appropriate probable cause to pull the person over; therefore, the officer will follow the suspect outside of their jurisidiction where the stop is made.

Fresh pursuit has clear guidelines that a stop officer must abide by, including that the cop must reasonably suspect a crime has been committed or is about to be committed, the pursuit must be continuous and uninterrupted, and the time between the commission of the offense and the purusit must not be overly lengthy. Please note, some agencies have jurisdictional agreements allowing for officers to make stops outside of their agency jurisdictions, for example, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office has compacts with some towns in the County to have the authority to stop and make an arrest.

In Central Florida Fresh Pursuit usually comes up in stops/arrests made in or around Maitland on the Seminole County border, Oviedo in the UCF area, on the border of Orange and Seminole County, and Apopka on the border of Orange and Seminole County. If you are arrested in the above-cited areas the first questions you must ask are, where exactly was I arrested, and did that agency have the proper jurisdiction to make the arrest? If either of the questions are not answered in the affirmative your case may potentially be thrown out via a Motion to Suppress.