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A PAST,
PRESENT, AND FUTURE FOR THE OFFICE OF THE SHERIFF
(Based on the National Sheriff’s
Association booklet: The Role Of The Sheriff Past -
Present - Future)
The exact date of the very first sheriff
undertaking his sworn duties to protect the lives
and property of those under his jurisdiction can not
be determined due to ambiguous historical findings
from all over the World. All of these findings point
towards some type of prototype sheriff. Many
historians believe that the ancient Roman pro-consul
was perhaps the first sheriff-like authority. Other
historians believe that a prototype sheriff appeared
first in Saxon Germany. Still more have discovered
that there was an Arab chief or prince who was the
descendant of Mahammed, through his daughter Fatima,
and was known as the sharif - translated to mean
illustrious or noble.
In 600 B.C., the Chaldean King of Babylon,
Nebuchadnezzar, was noted in the Book of Daniel as
being in the company of the sheriff during the
setting up of the golden image. This demonstrates
that the early recordings of the Holy Bible provide
a 2600 year old reference of an existing sheriff. It
is true, however, that clear references and
recording of sheriffs are a uniquely English
achievement.
Historian W. Morris wrote in his book about
sheriffs that "The office of the sheriff is one of
the most familiar and most useful to be found in the
history of English institutions,...,with the single
exception of kingship, no secular dignity now known
to English-speaking people is older." Writer Walter
H. Anderson, in his book, stated that "The office of
the sheriff is one of antiquity" and "is the oldest
law enforcement office known within the common-law
system and it has always been accorded great dignity
and high trust."
Thomas Jefferson wrote in his The value of
Constitutions, that "there is no honorable law
enforcement authority in Anglo-American law so
ancient as that of the county sheriff whose role as
a peace officer goes back at least to the time of
Alfred the Great." All of these men have shown the
possibility that even though there may have been
sheriff like people in other cultures and times,
today’s sheriff is essentially a direct descendant
of the English sheriffs. It is known that even the
English sheriff was once referred to as a shire
reeve, and perhaps it is true that the shire reeve
was a descendant of these sheriff-like people of
other lands.
The sheriff was created because laws needed
enforcing. An interesting way to track the roots of
the sheriff is to study the written laws of Kings in
ancient times. One of the first Kings to do so was
Lipit-Istar, the King of Isin in 2207 B.C. He
developed legally binding guidelines to curb the
behavior of his Sumerian subjects. A little over a
hundred years later, Babylonian King Hammurabi,
devised the well known and still studied
codification system affectionately called the Codes
of Hammurabi. In 1500 B.C., King Thutmose III spoke
of justice when appointing Justice Rekhmire. All of
these scenarios point to a building up of a legal
system in the Egyptian era.
Jews were eventually ordered to follow and obey
the first five books of the Old Testament known as
the Pentateuch, showing recorded law near the Roman
era. Assyrians and Chinese governments attempted
codified laws and the Code of Manu was used by
India. As the Roman era was well underway, a digest
of Roman law was created in 450 A.D. This was
improved in 550 A.D. by Justinian. As all of these
were forged, there must have been some type of
enforcement by authority figures, whether the kings
themselves or their armies. It may be possible that
the sheriff role was merely a title of one who
enforces.
Then the Magna Carta was written and signed by
King John in 1215 A.D., nearly 800 years ago. The
sheriffs had already existed and were known under
this sir title. Sheriffs had been recognized as
principle participants in the drama of government,
seated just under the crown’s barons in hierarchy.
Their duties and responsibilities mostly carried
over as America was established.
The English creation of the sheriff and the
common law was forged through the earlier influence
of morals and values from the Angles, Saxons, and
the Normans. Their belief in home rule over
government control spawned the establishment of the
tuns (towns) that eventually became the tenths of
land that banded together to fight in their wars. As
the tenths banded into hundredths and small counties
formed (reeves), they needed to be headed by a
chief, called a gerefa. The garefa eventually became
the word reeve in the Saxon language. The garefas
and the chiefs of the smaller tenths, known as
tithingmen, possessed both tribal judicial and
tribal police authority. There was no government
centralization until in 827 A.D. This is when Egbert,
King of Wessex won the loyalty of all the people in
the tribes, newly referred to as "Englishmen".
Alfred the Great created a system of freemen
pledging the good behavior of their neighbor, in
sort of a prototype neighborhood watch. A reeve was
created to sound an alarm when criminals escaped
from the early jail. This alarm was the repeated
shouting of the words hue and cry and
ironically was the ancestor of the citizen’s arrest.
(The Hue
and Cry, from Irene Gladwin’s book: The Sheriff)
England continued to expand and the larger, more
modern, counties formed and were called shires. The
reeves put in charge of the large counties were
called shire reeves in order to distinguish them
from the smaller county reeves. England then became
a very war torn country, there was the Norman
Invasion, the fall of Hastings and the subsequent
end to Saxon rule over England.
The Norman influence over England only
strengthened the power of the sheriff. He became
government oriented and lost his home rule ideology.
As government taxed the people the sheriff took on a
new responsibility to enforce taxation. Norman rule,
however, was greatly abusive and faced constant
rebellion from the Englishmen. In 1199 Richard the
Lionhearted died and his despotic brother, John,
inherited the throne and pushed the crown to its
limit. His own barons and sheriffs rebelled against
him and he was forced to sign the prior mentioned
Magna Carta. This document became the proverbial
"cornerstone" from which the British and American
governments were to proliferate their power. There
were at the very least, nine (9) mentions of the
office of sheriff in the Magna Carta.
Discovery and conquering of new land became
central to the English Crown. America was discovered
and potentially named after the High Sheriff of
Bristol, Richard Amerycke, by error in the reading
of a voyage map (this is a recent theory that
contrasts the theory of the country being named
after Amerigo Vespucci). As colonies were
established, the sheriff’s office was copied into
the local culture and law. The first such transition
of the English Sheriff to American soil was in
Virginia in 1634. Sheriff’s were still appointed by
the King and was an extension of royal authority and
representative of the King. There is a record of a
sheriff being elected by popular vote as early as
1651, but this was highly irregular for the rules of
the era.
Unlike the latter English sheriffs who put
great expense out of their pockets to perform the
duty as sheriff, the American sheriff was very
profitable. This was attributed to the lack of pomp
and ceremony that existed in England and the need
their to entertain. All men sought this highly
prestigious position in the colonies. Maryland,
coincidentally, became a close second in
establishing the office of the sheriff in the United
States.
As Colonial times continued the Sheriff faced
some unique and never before experienced problems.
Travel was very difficult in America as there was no
infrastructure and no address system. This meant
that the sheriff had to take advantage of the
culture and knowing colonists attended church, would
wait at the churches of those he needed to serve
papers at. This was a very secular and
ecclesiastical issue that caused the churches to
lobby for banning sheriffs from their premises in
official capacities. Despite any hard feelings,
sheriffs were provided their own seats at church and
they counter lobbied for laws requiring ministers to
read the sheriffs’ proclamations on two successive
Sundays, thus still allowing them to get their man.
Ironically, the sheriff became charged with the
responsibility of dealing with religious
non-conformists.
As the western frontier was explored, the
sheriff’s office also moved into establishment out
west. Settlers became the targets and prey of
Indians, thieves and bandits. Everyone needed to
protect their gold and oil. The sheriffs of the west
became very busy in a hostile environment, becoming
sub-divided into two (2) categories, the quick and
the dead.
Today the functions of the sheriff are
influenced by the social and political climates of a
modern society. People still like to elect their top
law enforcement officials in their counties and many
people still covet the office. Even non-law
enforcement experienced citizens run for the office.
The sheriff of today is still the great man of his
county.
As the office of the sheriff moves into the
future, there is a distinct difference from the
earlier sheriffs. This is for the concern of
training. The sheriff has always had to adopt to
change and is perhaps the most resistant law
enforcement authority to stubborn bureaucracy and
being unaccustomed to change. Training is the best
way to continue this trend as modern society finds
new ways to commit crimes and use technology to aid
them in their unlawful actions.
THE SHERIFF -
POLITICALLY SPEAKING
The
Sheriff offers the people under his county
jurisdiction, the most effective liaison to law
enforcement. When citizens have a complaint
concerning some problem in their county, the Sheriff
is ultimately their best remedy. Although modern
times have placed more glamorous attention on local
and state police, they create a myriad of problems
in reality.
The Sheriff can respond faster to any citizen’s
complaint then any police department. This is one of
the many forgotten powers of the Sheriff in the
minds of the citizenry. His fast and efficient
abilities for handling such concerns are derived
from his constitutional foundation.
As an elected law enforcement representative, he has
great political power on the direction, time spent,
and discretion of any request from a constituent.
This is in stark contrast to the bureaucratic red
tape of the modern, contracted police authority.
LEGAL POWER OF THE
SHERIFF
Today, especially in the northeast portion of the
United States, there is some controversy over the
legal power and authority of the modern day
sheriffs. A March-April 2000 issue of Sheriff
magazine addressed this issue head-on and appears to
be the most recent clarification of the sheriff
authority. Even though the title has been altered at
times within the last 1200 years, the legal
authority has remained almost fully resistant to
change.
Looking at a six (6) year old Pennsylvania
Supreme Court case, the court held that the
"constitutionally designated sheriff in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a law enforcement
officer who is vested with full powers and duties to
stop motor vehicles, issue citations for motor
vehicle violations under statutory code, and make
arrests with or without warrants" (Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania vs. Leet, 585 A.2d 1033).
Sheriffs and their deputies are basically police
officers. Judge Carillo, who presided over this
case, even went as far as writing how
"instinctively,..., we are reminded of Sherwood
Forest, where the Sheriff of Nottingham was the
chief law enforcement officer who possessed
far-reaching powers" and "King Henry of England
states to the Sheriff of Nottingham,...But look well
to it, Master Sheriff, for I will have my laws
obeyed by all men within my kingdom, and if thou art
not able to enforce them, thou art no sheriff for
me."
For many years it has been known that modern
sheriffs are vested with the powers and duties
possessed by their predecessors under common law. In
1941, a landmark graduate student dissertation was
written by an A. Anderson and stated "While the
legislature may impose additional duties upon the
sheriff, where he is recognized as a constitutional
officer, it cannot restrict or reduce his powers as
allowed by the Constitution, or where they were
recognized when the constitution was adopted."
Anderson continued on to say, "The legislature may
vary the duties of a constitutional office, but it
may not change the duties so as to destroy the power
to perform the duties of the office."
Anderson found that it was
legally acceptable for state legislatures to impose
upon sheriffs new duties growing out of public
policy or convenience. However, the state
legislatures still can not strip the sheriffs of
their "time honored and common law functions". The
legislatures cannot "devolve them upon the
incumbents of other offices created by legislative
authority." From this, today’s sheriffs have both
expressed constitutional and statutory grants of
authority. They also have implied authority based on
their predecessors actions and can utilize it when
it will aid their expressed authority.
The modern sheriffs’ provinces and scope of
authority can be determined by studying the modern
day legislation. The sheriff has the right and duty
to enforce any of this legislation as it concerns
securing the peace, order, safety, and comfort of
the community under his jurisdiction. In enforcing
such legislation, the sheriff satisfies his
constitutional obligations in enforcing the
democracy’s laws, protecting the lives and property
of it’s people, and safeguarding the health and
morals of the community.
As the sheriffs were appointed in the New
World, they acquired the power of arrest for all
offenses attempted or committed in their presence,
without a warrant. Any felony committed not in their
presence could also be reasonable grounds for an
arrest under the ancient common law, matching the
exact measure for an arrest by any police officer
today with one modern day addition - articulable
facts leading a reasonable police officer to believe
there exists probable cause that the crime did, is,
or will occur.
In conclusion, modern sheriff duties are
performed by order of the people instead of by order
of the King or Queen, so it is easy to see how the
legal authority is politically oriented. Sheriffs
can maneuver through court battles involving a
challenge to their authority and come out
successfully when they address the legal protections
of their office concerning their constitutional
obligations, and no legal system or authority in the
United States can challenge it with any standing. As
so, the sheriff and his deputies have retained their
authority to arrest without a warrant for all
crimes, however defined, committed in their
presence, and for felonies not committed in their
presence. These powers could not be truncated when
the American legal system changed from common law to
statutory law due to the verbiage of the
Constitution, so the Sheriff exists as both an
ancient and a modern authority. |
