murder, which carries a life sentence.
On Apr 11, 3:55 pm, Mark <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> HISTORY OF THE SHERIFF
> The Office of the Sheriff has existed for over one thousand (1000)
> years and is the oldest law enforcement position in the United States.
> The word Sheriff is derived from the Shire-reeve, who was the most
> powerful English law authority figure, even before 1000 A.D. The
> Shire-reeve, in contrast to a reeve (in charge of mere tenths), was
> responsible for both the order of the land within his banded group of
> a hundred families (shire) and the call of the "hue and cry". The hue
> and cry made every citizen in earshot of the sheriff's call lawfully
> obligated to join in a posse-commitatas, or group, which banded to
> catch criminals.
>
> Additional Links
>
> History of the Sheriff
> A past, present and future
> The Sheriff Politically Speaking
> Legal Power of the Sheriff
> New Jersey History
> A PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE FOR THE OFFICE OF THE SHERIFF top
> (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. ...
>
> read more »
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