“Constitutional sheriffs” contend that their authority goes beyond enforcing the law to determining what the law is, according to the ABA Journal.
These so-called sheriffs say their authority is
greater than other elected officials because of their oath to uphold the U.S.
Constitution, according to a Washington
Post op-ed by Christy E. Lopez, a “professor from practice” at
the Georgetown
University Law Center.
Robert L. Tsai, an author and a professor at the
Boston University School of Law, explained the concept in a 2017 Politico article.
“The strange idea that unites all members of this
movement is that a sheriff is the highest law enforcement officer within a
county’s borders—superior not only to local police, but also to officers and
agents of the federal government,” wrote Tsai, who was previously a professor
at the American University Washington College of Law.
The sheriffs’ claims are bogus, according to Lopez.
“After searching in vain for any legal basis for
sheriff supremacy and checking with several others who have studied law
enforcement and civilian oversight, I can confirm that a constitutional sheriff
with unique autonomy is not actually a thing,” she wrote.
Constitutional sheriffs have refused to enforce
local mask mandates and federal gun laws.
“We are defying tyrants,” said Richard Mack, the
founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, in a
November interview with the Washington
Post. “People appreciate and sympathize with the mission. They don’t want
to be told they have to wear a diaper on their face.”
One of the movement’s adherents, then-Sheriff
Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, refused to obey a judge’s order
that he stop detaining citizens based only on a suspicion that they were in the
country illegally.
Then-President Donald Trump pardoned
Arpaio in 2017, a month after the sheriff was found in contempt for
violating the order.
Mack told the Washington Post that about 300 of the
nation’s 3,000 sheriffs belong to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace
Officers Association. About 10,000 citizens have also joined.
Constitutional sheriffs have expressed support for
Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol rioters, Lopez said. She pointed out that Mack was once a
board member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that includes several
members charged
with conspiracy in the Jan. 6 riot, according to BuzzFeed News.
Mack told the Washington Post that he resigned from
the board in 2015 when the Oath Keepers positioned itself as a peacekeeping
force against Black Lives Matter protesters.
Although constitutional sheriffs claim that their
superior constitutional position is supported by history, the idea is “based on
a faulty reading of history,” Tsai wrote.
The idea “has been made up by stitching together
random references to sheriffs and militias in our political and legal texts,”
Tsai wrote. “It relies on a highly selective reading of history, pretending
that the high sheriff of the English shire was transplanted to colonial
America, and then somehow emerged in the present day untouched by legal
developments over the past 200 years.”
To read more CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment