Senator introduces bill requiring game wardens to obtain search warrants
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It took more than a year and a state Supreme Court decision, but legislation has been introduced that would require state game wardens to obtain a search warrant for searches on private property.
Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, introduced a co-sponsorship memorandum for Senate Bill 1431 in April 2025. The legislation was formally introduced in the state Senate on Tuesday with support from fellow Republican senators Dawn Keefer, Cris Dush, Patrick Stefano and Tracy Pennycuick.
The legislation is straightforward, giving state Game Commission officers and employees the right to go onto any property, poster or otherwise, with a valid search warrant or under a judicially recognized exception to the warrant requirement.
"My legislation will limit the PGC's unfettered statutory authority from entering private property without any independent probable cause that a crime has occurred, when a landowner has provided reasonable notice against trespass," Laughlin wrote in his co-sponsorship memorandum.
Laughlin's bill comes after a unanimous ruling by the state Supreme Court in late July in Punxsutawney Hunting Club v. Pennsylvania Game Commission that game wardens were violating state constitutional privacy rights by being allowed to go onto posted private property without a warrant.
Previous case law reaffirmed as recently as 2007 utilized what is known as the open fields doctrine that authorized unlawful searches of private property not immediately surrounding a private home. The state Supreme Court ruled that prior precedent was wrongly reasoned. The open fields doctrine allowed Pennsylvania Game Commission personnel authority to enter private property and conduct surveillance without a warrant or probable cause even if landowners have clearly posted notices against trespassing.
“For the reasons that follow, we conclude that slavish adherence to our decision in Russo must give way to the greater privacy and property protections afforded under ArticleI, Section 8 of our state charter,” wrote Justice Kevin Brobson in the court’s decision. “As our jurisprudence in this area has evolved, the court’s reasoning and result in Russo have not aged well. In short, we hold that: Russo was wrongly decided; Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution affords greater protection to land beyond the curtilage of a home or building; and most of the challenged Entry Statutes are, consequently, unconstitutional.”
Brobson wrote that the fact warrantless searches violate the state charter should not unreasonably impede the work of state game wardens. Wardens will still be able to conduct warrantless searches of private property that is not posted, fenced or otherwise marked to exclude intruders; observe evidence of violations that occur in plain view on private property that is posted, fenced, or otherwise marked to exclude intruders; obtain a warrant to search private property that is posted, fenced or otherwise marked to exclude intruders based upon their receipt of information that a Code violation has occurred; or apply a recognized exception to the warrant requirement as a means to search private property that is posted, fenced, or otherwise marked to exclude intruders.
“While this means that the current balance, as reflected in Russo, must shift toward affording greater protection to possessed land and limiting the reach of the federal open fields doctrine under our state charter, it is the weight and pull of our citizens’ privacy rights under our state charter that demands the realignment, not a diminution of the importance of our citizens’ right to the conservation, maintenance and protection of wildlife under the (Environmental Rights Act).”