794
Opinion of the Court
iff as the executive officer of the Crown which has all along been the outstanding characteristic of the office").
As the basic forms of English government were transplanted in our country, it also became the common understanding here that the sheriff, though limited in jurisdiction to his county and generally elected by county voters,8 was in reality an officer of the State, and ultimately represented the State in fulfilling his duty to keep the peace. See, e. g., Wager, Introduction, in County Government Across the Nation 5 (P. Wager ed. 1950) ("The office of sheriff has an unbroken lineage from the Anglo-Saxon shire-reeve"); 1 W. Anderson, A Treatise on the Law of Sheriffs, Coroners and Constables 5 (1941) ("In the exercise of executive and administrative functions, in conserving the public peace, in vindicating the law, and in preserving the rights of the government, he (the sheriff) represents the sovereignty of the State and he has no superior in his county"); R. Cooley, Handbook on the Law of Municipal Corporations 512 (1914) ("Sheriffs, coroners, clerks and other so-called county officers are properly state officers for the county. Their functions and duties pertain chiefly to the affairs of state in the county"); 3 J. Bouvier, Bouvier's Law Dictionary 3058 (8th ed. 1914) (defining sheriff as "[a] county officer representing the executive or administrative power of the state within his county").
This historical sketch indicates that the common law itself envisioned the possibility that state law enforcement "policies" might vary locally, as particular sheriffs adopted varying practices for arresting criminals or securing evidence.9
8 See W. Murfree, A Treatise on the Law of Sheriffs and Other Ministerial Officers 6 (1890) (sheriffs elected by county voters in all States but two).
9 Cf. McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F. 3d 1573, 1579 (CA11 1996) ("[W]e see no anomaly in having different state policymakers in different counties. Such a situation would be no different than if each of a city's police precinct commanders had unreviewable authority over how arrestees were processed. Each commander might have a different processing policy, but that does not render a commander's policy that of her precinct as opposed to that of the city when the city is sued under § 1983").
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007