University Police Department officers are no longer allowed to make stops for traffic violations on roads bordering campus, such as University Avenue and 13th Street, according to a local court's recent ruling.
But UPD will continue to make traffic stops on these roads unless challenged in future court cases, citing mutual-aid agreements between the department and local law enforcement agencies.
In response to the June 20 ruling by the Eighth Judicial Circuit, UPD officials plan to make an appeal of their own regarding the decision.
The court found that a clause in Florida Statutes allowing university police to enforce traffic laws "on or about" campus should be reinterpreted to mean roads running through or within the confines of campus, according to court documents.
UPD had understood the statute to refer to roads "close to, adjacent to or a couple blocks within" UF property, said UPD spokesman Lt. Robert Wagner.
State Attorney Bill Cervone said an appeal to the Florida's First District Court of Appeal will ask to overturn the circuit court's ruling as an incorrect interpretation of the "on or about" clause, but a final ruling will not be made for many months.
In the meantime, motorists convicted of traffic violations on roads adjacent to campus may attempt to get their cases dismissed based on the recent ruling, but the State Attorney's Office will argue these cases using the mutual-aid agreements, Cervone said.
Such agreements have been upheld in lower courts in the past, Wagner said.
However, because the State Attorney's Office didn't document the agreements in the lower courts, the court could not consider them in its ruling, said Tom Copeland, a local attorney who worked on the case.
Copeland said state statutes reserve mutual-aid agreements for temporary emergencies, such as natural disasters or instances of civil disobedience, and it is unlawful that UPD has expanded its jurisdiction based on these agreements.
Copeland said UPD's use of the agreements could be likened to a hypothetical contract between UPD and the FBI in which UPD is given national jurisdiction.
"It's ridiculous, but that's what they're arguing," he said.
Copeland said he and other attorneys who worked on the case will file a motion requesting reconsideration or clarification by the court on the mutual-aid agreements.
The two dissenting judges found that because UF lacks "perfect boundaries" �" controlling property on both sides of streets adjacent to the main campus �" UPD should be allowed to enforce traffic laws on bordering roads that serve UF.
UPD can still make stops on off-campus streets when a traffic violation occurs within the borders of campus and an officer is in "hot pursuit."
A drug arrest made by UPD on June 13 after a traffic stop on Southwest Ninth Avenue near Sorority Row would be the type of stop made invalid by the circuit court's ruling.
Wagner said the fact that the lower court's cases involved DUI but were dismissed in the appeal is especially troubling.
"So let me get this straight," he said. "I have to be on this road (adjacent to campus) to get to other (UF) property, but I have to let them go so they can go down the street and kill somebody?"
