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What Happened — and Why We're Fighting

On June 17, 2026, an en banc Superior Court held 8–1 in Commonwealth v. Wiggs, 2026 PA Super 126, that a constable's vehicle is not a "police vehicle" under 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 102 and 4571. We respectfully disagree. The decision treats Pennsylvania's oldest elected law enforcement officers as something less than the police officers the statutes already make them — one more move in a steady, concerted effort to narrow the authority of officers the people themselves put into office.

Section 102 defines a "police officer" as a person whose authority to arrest is conferred by law. That is precisely what sets constables apart. Pennsylvania has other directly-elected officers who enforce the law — sheriffs are elected too — but constables are the only directly-elected officers whose arrest authority is statutory rather than merely common-law. Constables alone are both elected and statutory police. Judge Stabile said as much in dissent, and his reasoning is our north star.

So we are not accepting this quietly. We are pursuing a Petition for Allowance of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and we are asking the General Assembly to amend 75 Pa.C.S. § 4571(b)(1) to say plainly what the law already implies: that a constable's vehicle is a police vehicle. You can help with both.

There is also a timely opening in Harrisburg. House Bill 2479, sponsored by Rep. Dan Goughnour, would amend the Vehicle Code to authorize emergency lights on the vehicles of armed county probation officers — and the House Transportation Committee reported it out on June 22, 2026. It now sits in the House Rules Committee, waiting for a floor vote in the 2025–2026 session. If the General Assembly is ready to recognize the safety and visibility needs of probation officers, it should extend the same recognition to the Commonwealth's directly-elected constables, who are already authorized by statute to direct traffic on our roads (75 Pa.C.S. § 3102).

A second opening waits one step behind it. House Bill 2582, sponsored by Rep. Sean Dougherty, would amend the § 102 definition of “emergency vehicle” itself, adding the vehicles of Fugitive Apprehension Search Team parole agents — officers whose job is finding and arresting fugitives and absconders, the same mission constables perform serving the Commonwealth’s arrest warrants. HB 2582 amends the very definitional section Wiggs turned on. It was laid on the table on September 8, 2026 — not defeated, waiting for exactly the broader coalition constables can build. We are asking legislators to include constables in either bill, or in a companion amendment to § 4571(b)(1) or to the § 102 emergency-vehicle definition.

There is a second ask, and it is about staying alive. Serving arrest warrants is a statutory constable duty, and the people named on those warrants are frequently wanted for violent crimes. A constable’s safety depends on knowing who that person is and who they run with. An unfamiliar car in the driveway of a house a constable is about to approach may belong to someone with a violent record, which is a lethal risk to the constable and to everyone else on that street. An eviction or a levy is more dangerous still: the constable is there to take a person’s home or property, first through the door and often the only officer present, with a locksmith, movers, or a landlord standing behind the constable. Constables cannot run either check. That information lives in NCIC, and Pennsylvania reaches NCIC through CLEAN, a system the State Police run. Access requires an ORI, and the State Police have repeatedly refused to issue constables one. Their own published CLEAN regulations set the test for full access as the definition of a “criminal justice agency” in 18 Pa.C.S. § 9102 and 28 C.F.R. § 20.3, and state no training requirement and no certification requirement. That test is functional: an office created by statute that performs the administration of criminal justice and spends its budget on it. A constable office executes warrants, makes arrests, transports prisoners, keeps the peace and stands by on request from residents, businesses, and courts, enforces municipal ordinances when a municipality engages it, and investigates complaints of violations of law at a court’s direction under 44 Pa.C.S. § 7157(b). In structure the office is a sheriff’s office on a fee base: an elected officer, deputies appointed under statute, and the same arrest, warrant, custody, and transport work, and a sheriff’s office holds an ORI without asking anyone. The Attorney General, who holds the declaration power under § 9102, has nonetheless declared more than sixty entities criminal justice agencies, among them two public defender’s offices with no arrest power, a state lottery director’s office, and one state park. We are asking the Attorney General to confirm by declaration what the statute already provides for the constable office, and we are asking the General Assembly to name constables expressly in the list of criminal justice agencies in § 9102. It is one line of statute. The full record is on the ORI campaign page.

Read the full case & dissent

Step 1: Find Your Representatives

The fastest, most durable fix is legislative. Tell your state representative and senator to amend 75 Pa.C.S. § 4571(b)(1) to expressly include constable vehicles, and to amend 18 Pa.C.S. § 9102 so constables can run the wanted-and-stolen checks their safety depends on. Start by finding the two legislators who answer to you.