Court rules Virginians Can’t be Charged With Fleeing Police if Officers Are Too Far Away
Court rules Virginians Can’t be Charged With Fleeing Police if Officers Are Too Far Away
The Virginia Court of Appeals overruled a man’s misdemeanor conviction for fleeing from police after ruling the Lynchburg police officer who attempted to make the arrest didn’t get close enough to the suspect to have a realistic chance of grabbing him. In an opinion revealing what the court describe...
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2320015
The Virginia Court of Appeals overruled a man’s misdemeanor conviction for fleeing from police after ruling the Lynchburg police officer who attempted to make the arrest didn’t get close enough to the suspect to have a realistic chance of grabbing him.
In an opinion revealing what the court described as a legal quirk unique to Virginia, the court found that an officer telling someone to stop from 20 yards away doesn’t satisfy a rule requiring officers to have the “immediate physical ability to place the person under arrest.”
The opinion applies mainly to foot chases, not a separate eluding law that criminalizes fleeing police in a motor vehicle.