Saturday, April 05, 2008

The Highest LEO?

The duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county. He has law enforcement powers that exceed that of any other state or federal official.

This is settled law that most people are not aware of.
I'm not so sure about that.

[Via Vinnie and MacEntyre]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Went back and looked at your post from August. I missed that one as I was in the midst of fighting Jimm Larry Hendren’s assault on Wayne Fincher’s character. I dimly remember seeing the feed or title about it, but am not sure which. Anyway, what it boils down to is simply this:

Whoever has the most guns and requisite firepower has the authority — end of story. That being stated, the following is what is supposed to occur:

A sheriff could resist the Feds, but he cannot resist the State (as in the State of (your state here)). The reason for this lies in the fact that the counties and all offices within that county are a creation of the state constitution, agreed upon by the people themselves.

If then, the state decides that they will cooperate with the Federal Government (for whatever reason) then the county sheriff cannot legitimately resist Federal agents when they decide to enforce Federal law inside the bounds of the county. Depending upon whatever agreements exist between the state and the federal government (and its alphabet soup agencies) they may be required to notify the sheriff when they operate inside a county, and it is customarily done. However, if the sheriff himself is suspected, then they tell no one, not even at the state level.

To change this, one would have to bring suit in their state and prove that the state was in violation of their own constitution by cooperating with the Federal Government in certain law enforcement matters. It’s a rough row to hoe legally, and I think you will lose every time.