Swingle 7

Sara Swingle

April 20, 2005

Professor Latorre

CJ 201 Criminal Law

Domestic Violence Arrest Statute §2711

        Section 2711 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, entitled probable cause arrests in domestic violence cases, subsection (a) states that a police officer shall have the same right of arrest without a warrant as in a felony whenever he has probable cause to believe the defendant has violated section 2504 (relating to involuntary manslaughter), 2701 (relating to simple assault), 2702(a)(3), (4) and (5) (relating to aggravated assault), 2705 (relating to recklessly endangering another person), 2706 (relating to terroristic threats) or 2709.1 (relating to stalking) against a family or household member although the offense did not take place in the presence of the police officer.  A police officer may not arrest a person pursuant to this section without first observing recent physical injury to the victim or other corroborative evidence. Under title 23 §6102 a “family or household member” can be spouses or persons who have been spouses, persons living as spouses or who have lived as spouses, parents and children, other persons related by consanguinity or affinity, current or former sexual or intimate partners or persons who share biological parenthood.

The sections that a law enforcement agent could arrest for were not all the ones stated above; back in 1989 they could only arrest without a warrant for sections 2504, 2701, and 2705.  The statute was then added to in 1998 because of the court case Cronin v. West Whiteland Tp.  The police received a 911 phone call stating that a domestic disturbance was in progress and immediate response was necessary.  Upon entering the kitchen police observed “the defendant had been holding a knife… the kitchen was in state of disarray, defendant had bleeding scratch and wife had a cut on hand.” (Purdon’s, 166).  Also in 1989 in addition to what sections officers could arrest for they also had to “observe recent physical injury or other corroborative evidence and the victim is a spouse of the suspect or a person with whom the suspect resides or has formally resided with.” (Zimmerman, 30).  

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Subsection (b) of §2711 talks of the seizure of weapons, in which the police officer must remove all weapons that were used by the defendant in the commission of the alleged offense.  In layman’s terms section 2711 requires that an arrest be made by law enforcement and all weapons taken into custody when a domestic violence call is answered.

Before the two court cases that established subsection (b) law enforcement agents were unable to remove the weapons used in the altercation between the defendant and victim.  Due to Cronin v. West Whiteland (1998) and

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