Pennsylvania constables face a coordinated effort to narrow their authority, increase their costs, and remove them from roles the law explicitly assigns to them. The issues below are interconnected — and they affect not just constables, but the communities that depend on locally accountable law enforcement.
Pennsylvania Constable Steven Ahmad Wiggs was prosecuted by the Pennsylvania State Police for operating his marked patrol vehicle in an official law enforcement capacity — including charges of impersonating a police officer and illegal firearms possession. Every Philadelphia charge was dismissed, quashed, or resulted in a not-guilty verdict. The Court of Common Pleas ordered PSP to return his marked police vehicle, his firearms, and all property seized in connection with the arrests. A second constable, Douglas Filson, was found not guilty of the same lights charge in Philadelphia in 2023.
Separately, PSP cited Wiggs in Perry County for equipping his marked constable vehicle with emergency lights while performing his duties. Three Pennsylvania Superior Court judges reviewed the case and split 2-1. The dissenting judge put the problem plainly: a legislature that authorizes constables to direct traffic and issue lawful orders to motorists cannot then deny them the emergency lights that allow those motorists to recognize and respond to that authority. The full Superior Court accepted the case for reargument. The matter continues.
The legislature can resolve this immediately. Adding constable vehicles to the emergency vehicle definitions in the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code would end the statutory ambiguity courts are now debating. Until that happens, constables will continue to perform their authorized duties while being prosecuted for performing them — which is exactly what a pattern of prosecution looks like.
Constables are paid per service under a statutory fee schedule — not a salary — and are not employees of any government body. That classification has tax consequences: the IRS treats constable fee income as self-employment income, subject to self-employment tax (currently 15.3%) in addition to ordinary income taxes. Unlike most public servants, constables have no employer paying half their payroll taxes.
What makes this especially inequitable is what comes out of that same fee income before taxes: training costs, equipment costs, vehicle purchase and maintenance, professional liability insurance (required by statute at 44 Pa.C.S. § 7142), and all the other expenses of running the office. Pennsylvania has also issued conflicting guidance on how to classify constable fee income across tax years, leaving many newly elected constables — who ran for office in good faith — facing unexpected large tax liabilities at the end of their first year.
Reform advocates have proposed treating constable fee income consistently with other elected-official compensation for tax purposes. This would not require state spending — only consistent, fair classification of income that comes from performing a public duty.
Constable authority is not a recent grant — it is the statutory foundation from which Pennsylvania's other law enforcement agencies derive their own powers. When the legislature created the Pennsylvania State Police in 1905, it explicitly gave them "the powers and prerogatives conferred by law upon...constables of this Commonwealth." That language is not incidental; it reflects what was already established. Philadelphia police hold the same derivation under the 1951 Home Rule Charter.
Today, under 44 Pa.C.S. Chapter 71 and related statutes, constables hold: warrantless arrest authority for felonies and breaches of the peace; warrant execution for courts throughout the Commonwealth; civil process service; prisoner transport; courthouse security; election duty; and traffic-direction authority on equal statutory footing with police officers and sheriffs (75 Pa.C.S. § 3102).
Despite this, centralized interests have mounted a sustained effort to narrow what constables can do: restricting arrest authority to a constable's home ward only; eliminating court-directed investigative authority; removing constables from courthouse security assignments; arguing in court and before agencies that constables lack "police officer" status for operational purposes — despite direct statutory language to the contrary. Each restriction, taken alone, looks minor. Together, they add up to a slow administrative elimination of a constitutionally established office.
Constables already complete rigorous mandatory training before performing judicial duties — 80 hours of basic training, 40 hours of firearms training, and 20 hours of annual continuing education and recertification, all paid out of pocket. Many voluntarily pursue far more: active shooter response, tactical emergency casualty care, search and rescue, domestic violence response, FEMA emergency management, and dozens of other courses funded entirely by the constable.
Proposed "reforms" frequently use training requirements as a pretext for something else: eliminating the constable office by making it economically unviable. Proposals to mandate 750 or more hours of police-academy-style training — at a cost of thousands of dollars per constable — would price out working people who run for the office in good faith. That is the point.
There is also a legal principle at stake. The legislature grants statutory authority. If it intends to condition that authority on specific training, it enacts that requirement explicitly. Agencies cannot use training gaps as an administrative back door to strip powers the legislature has already granted. The sequence matters: authority comes from statute; training follows; agencies do not get to reverse the order.
Pennsylvania law designates constables as the only law enforcement officers permitted inside polling places on Election Day. That is a deliberate design choice: election security rests with locally elected, non-partisan officers who are directly accountable to voters — not officials appointed by the executive branch or controlled by changing state administrations. Constables at the polls protect voters in both directions: they prevent illegal interference with the voting process, and they ensure no qualified voter is wrongfully turned away.
This role is now under pressure. Legislative proposals have sought to replace the constable's election-day presence with "election security officers" appointed by the Secretary of State — shifting accountability from the voters themselves to a state official. Other proposals would restrict constables inside polling places to passive observation only, stripping them of the authority the law already gives them. In jurisdictions with too few active constables, the office's election-day role is simply being eliminated by attrition.
Locally elected constables provide a form of election-day accountability that is directly answerable to the voters in each district. Replacing them with state-appointed officials changes who the election security officer works for — from the community to the state administration.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has the power to resolve the emergency lights question, reform the fee schedule, and protect the constable office from administrative erosion. Your legislators need to hear from constituents who understand what is at stake.
What to say: Ask your representative and senator to:
Most Pennsylvanians do not know constables are under pressure — until local coverage disappears, court processes slow down, or election-day security changes. Help people understand what they stand to lose.