The following press release was received from Henderson City Attorney John Zollicoffer moments ago:
In response to an inquiry relative to the jurisdiction of the City of Henderson Police Department, City Attorney, John H. Zollicoffer, Jr. verified that the Henderson City Police had jurisdiction throughout Vance County.
The City Attorney pointed out that unlike counties, cities (or as they are referred to in the General Statutes as “municipal corporations”) are created by the General Assembly by the issuance of Charters which grant the individual cities authority to operate and which sets forth the powers which are granted to the respective cities. Each city has its own charter and the charters are not all the same.
In the instance of the City of Henderson, Section 26 of the City Charter (governing police jurisdiction) provides:
“The members of the Police Department and the Chief of the Department shall have all (emphasis added) the powers and authority now, or which may hereafter be vested in sheriffs and constables for the preservation of peace of the City and for suppressing disturbances and arresting offenders, which authority of the Police Department shall not be confined to the corporate limits of the City, but may be exercised anywhere in Vance County …. ”
This charter provision has been in ciIect for the City of Henderson since at least 1953, and there are no restrictions or limitations on the same other than above set forth.
The City Charter further contains a provision in Section 57 providing that “all laws and clauses of law in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.”
Mr. ZoHicofter explained that all cities; of course, do not have the same authority granted in their charters as the City of Henderson; and indeed many of the older charters especially do not mention any jurisdiction for police departments. The General Assembly, which is the same body that writes both the General Statutes and the individual municipal charters, attempted to broaden the police jurisdictions of those cities by providing in Section 15A-402 and in 160A-286 that “in addition to their authority within the corporate limits, city policeman shall have all the powers invested in law enforcement officers by statute or common law within one mile of the corporate limits of the City.” City Attorney Zollicoffer explained that these statutes were passed with the intent to expand the authority of City Policemen in those municipalities that had no jurisdiction outside of their corporate limits rather than to limit the authority of City Policemen who had greater authorities in their respective charters. This is borne out, Attorney Zollicoffer indicates, by General Statute 160A-3 which provides that general laws are supplementary to city Charters and where powers are provided both by general law and by a city Charter, they shall be alternatives and a city may elect to follow either one; in the case of conflict or inconsistency between the two, the Charter shall control. This General Statute further states that the only time that the general law or General Statutes supersedes or controls over the Charter is where the general law expressly denies or limits the Charter power.
The City Attorney points out that neither G.S. 15A-402 or 160A-286 expressly refer to the City of Henderson’s jurisdiction or to cities whose Chatters grant broader jurisdiction to their respective police departments, and in no way do said general laws expressly limit Henderson’s Charter provision, it being the sole intent of those General Statutes to expand powers of police departments where charters have been silent or where lesser jurisdictions have been granted.
An analogous situation relative to another provision in the Henderson City Charter relates to the City’s extra-territorial jurisdiction for zoning and subdivisions. Not all cities have been granted such extra-territorial jurisdiction authority in their charters; in 1972 therefore, the General Assembly provided in G.S. 160A-360 that cities could exercise extra-territorial jurisdictional powers “within a defined area extending not more than one mile beyond its limits”. Attorney Zollicoffer pointed out however, that the Charter of the City of Henderson permitted the City of Henderson to exercise those powers within a territory of up to one and one-half miles outside its corporate limits. Again, the Charter provisions were more permissive than the General Statutes and granted the City of Henderson this additional authority.
Mr. Zollicoffer further indicates that when O.S. 160A-286 was first put into effect on July 1, 1972, he specifically sought a ruling from the Attorney General of North Carolina relative to the police jurisdiction and also as to the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the City of Henderson. Senior Deputy Attorney General Jim Bullock ruled at that time that the City of Henderson’s Charter provisions prevailed over each of these general provisions in the Statutes, concurring with the opinion being rendered by Attorney Zollicoffer. Jolm Zollicoffer states that both David Lawrence and Robert Farb of the University of North Carolina School of Government further reaffirmed Attorney Zollicoffer’s interpretation this week, holding that the jurisdiction of the Henderson Police Department exists county-wide throughout Vance County.
c: Mayor and Henderson City Council
City Manager Ray Griffin
Police Chief Keith Sidwell
Vance County Board of Commissioners
County Manager Jerry Ayscue
Sheriff Peter White