Explain US Law Enforcement to Me

Factual Questions
21

Good answers so far.

In Ohio, sheriff’s races are every four years and tend to be very low-key. It is not unusual to have the same sheriff serve many terms. The sheriff and his deputies are responsible for running the county jail, serving subpoenas from the Court of Common Pleas (the countywide court in Ohio), protecting judges and other county officials, and patrolling unincorporated areas of the county.

Sheriff’s elections can sometimes get nasty, though. There was a hotly-disputed sheriff’s election in Georgia (suburban Atlanta?) a few years ago that resulted in the winning candidate being murdered a few days after the election. IIRC, the just-defeated sheriff arranged for the murder to prevent his own corruption from being revealed.

22

The Dept. of Homeland Security, created after the Sept. 11, 2001 massacres, is intended to get a whole collection of federal agencies working together. That’s noble, but they haven’t quite reached that goal.

Here in Indiana, we once had clearer lines of demarcation; a sherriff’s officer had no power in the city, for example. The rules were changed, and any cop with authority anywhere in the state has authority everywhere in the state. Sometimes, political rivalries between city and county governments cause friction. Here in Anderson, county cops staged a series of raids of gambling in bars, to embarrass the mayor. Naturally, it happened in an election year.

23

Another set of issues may also play into the OP’s misunderstanding of US Courts/Law Enforcement.

It’s the courts themselves, which I haven’t seen any comment on.

I will speak from the example of Massachussetts & New Hampshire, where I’ve lived.

Local (State) court:

District Court - smaller crimes are tried here, usually misdemeanors, but perhaps some minor felonies. These would be violations of state/local laws. The case would be State of MA/NH v. Defendant.

Superior Court - more serious crimes are tried here, felonies and the like. These would be violations of state/local laws. The case would be State of MA/NH v. Defendant.

These courts are overseen by a set of appeal courts, leading up to the Supreme Court of <State>. Cases are prosecuted by District Attornies, or their Assistants (DA, ADA). Convicts are housed in a variety of types of prision/jail depending on the type of sentance (in general)

Federal Court - Cases which are in reference to violations of Federal law are tried here. The case would be US v Defendant. Convicts are handled by the Federal Penal system (though may be farmed out to more local prisions/jails.)

These courts are overseen by a set of appeal courts, leading up to the Supreme Court of The United States.

Depending on the offense, a variety of charges may be brought by local/state and/or federal courts, and the order in which they are processed is vague/complicated.

I hope this helps. (and makes sense, I’ve only “book” knowledge about the system, thank God! :D)

24

Indiana sherriffs, by the way, are the highest paid elected officials in the state. The sherriff gets a fee for every eviction, tax sale, and subpeona. Every jailed person on work-release or house-arrest (electronic ankle bracelet) pays a fee for the privilege. All that money goes to the sherriff himself, not to the county government.

25

And once again, the first half of this varies from state to state. What Butler describes is very close to what North Carolina does as well as the two New England states he’s familiar with.

But New York is a whole different story. From the bottom up, Town and Village Courts (New York “towns” are “townships” elsewhere) handle traffic offenses, petty criminal offenses and misdemeanors, arraign felons but may not dispose of their cases, and handle civil cases of the “small claims” variety. City Courts are similar but may accept plea bargains in accused felonies, and have a higher ceiling on civil cases. County Courts handle felonies and mid-range civil cases. The Supreme Court, a single statewide court with judges sitting in each county, is the court of general jurisdiction equivalent to Superior Courts elsewhere, and handles divorces, mandamus-type actions about local governments, civil cases without monetary limit, and appeals from the lower courts. There is an Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, with four regional “departments,” which resolves appeals from the Supreme Court, and finally a Court of Appeals as the top appellate court, the state’s “supreme” court of last resort.

26

There are other interesting law enforcement agencies as well. Pittsburgh PA city school district, for example, has its own police force complete with full powers of arrest. Some public housing projects have a dedicated police forces, as do some mass transit systems in various cities.

27

States are not “semi-autonomous.” States are sovereign. Each state has the right to order its own government and law enforcement in any way that it likes (so long as it is a “republican” form of government, which has not been explicitly defined).

There is no “U.S. Police.” In many states (such as Ohio), there is no “State Police.” (Ohio has a State Highway Patrol, but its jurisdiction is limited.)

In most states, the main law enforcement agency that investigates most crimes, including serious ones, is the local agency. If the crime occurs within the boundaries of an incorporated city, then its the City Police Department. If the crime occurs outside the boundaries of an incorporated city, then it is the County Sheriff’s Department. (Guys, please note the spelling of sheriff.) The main exceptions will be states like Connecticut, where there are counties in name only. (There is no government at the county level in Connecticut.)

The county/sheriff system is actually more or less derived from Mother England, with its old system of counties/shires and sheriffs/shire reeves. Most state governments (except for Alaska and Connecticut, primarily) devolve much government authority to local governments. Usually, all territory within a state is part of some county and is within the jurisdiction of a county government, whose chief law enforcement officer is the elected sheriff. (In Ohio, the only person who can arrest the sheriff is the county coroner, another elected official.)

If a community incorporates (that is, becoming a city or a village or whatever incorporated designations are created by that state’s law), then it can choose to offer its citizens services separate from the county, including law enforcement. Most cities have a city police department. IN most cases, where there is a city police department, the sheriff will cede patrolling and investigating duties to the police department. In counties where all the territory is part of one or another incorporated entity (such as Cuyahoga County, Ohio), the sheriff might not have any patrollling or investigating duties. However, being a constitutional officer, the sheriff still has supreme jurisdictional authority in the county.

It would be very unusual to find a police force anywhere in America whose patrol officers are unarmed. Sometimes law enforcement officers with more administrative or white collar functions (plainclothes) might be routinely unarmed, but not uniformed officers. Many entities, including private businesses have their own security departments, and many, if not most, of these officers will also be armed, although they do not operate under colour of governmental authority. Most large institutions, such as universities, also have their own security or police departments, and most of the time they will also be armed, again, even if they do not operate under colour of government authority.

28

The Leos who get no respect at all, form just about anybody, are the Booze, Butts, Bangs and Booms guys (ATFE). These are the “revenoors” the bootleggers always were on about., and the “Nazis” the gun-nuts are so paranoid about. They also have tended to be the ones who were the most abusive of individual rights. There have been some rather sweeping changes in the Agency lately, I’ve been told.

Then you have all the law enforcement personnel who moonlight as Security for private companies, or who are on loan to another agency, like the County Sheriff’s Deputy who is the Liason Officer at my school.

29

Marshals: The U.S. Marshal Service

Rangers: [Texas Rangers.](http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/director_staff/texas_rangers/#Job Duties:)

30

The UC police are but one of many “special cases” that we have in California, and I’m sure other states have similar setups.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a transit system operating in four counties in the San Francisco area. It has its own armed police force. While they may appear to be limited to nabbing pickpockets and people that hop the faregates, they are sworn officers and have full authority to act as peace (police) officers anywhere in the state. They’re actually evolving into a full-on force to be reckoned with - there was an article in today’s paper about how a BART police dog was instrumental in obtaining a warrant to search a person’s house, and finding a sizeable stash of illegal automatic weapons and bombs. This had absolutely nothing to do with BART, but the particular city this happened in apparently was low on police dogs, so they asked BART to come by and have a sniff, so to speak.

This also illustrates the level of cooperation between departments. A transit cop’s dog alerts on a house, the city police obtain a warrant, and ultimately, ATF comes in to do the heavy lifting of prosecuting the case.

31

Again, that’s something that can vary wildly between states.

The state of California doesn’t have District Courts. In California, Small Claims and/or Limited Jurisdiction is part of Superior Court, which is the umbrella for all local trials. Appeals move on to the Appellate Courts, and from there, you’re at the CA Supreme Court. Here, District Courts are Federal - you’d most likely only have contact with them if you’re filing for bankruptcy.

The naming of courts can get a bit loony. One example I was involved with recently was identified as: THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA, DOWNTOWN, LIMITED CIVIL JURISDICTION, DEPARTMENT 308. In other words, small claims court in San Jose, CA.

32

Adding to the mix, here is a list of US federal law enforcement positions:

Source: http://federaljobs.net/law.htm (Note this link is not a federal government web site.)

33

But don’t these agencies operate as a division of the local policing agency, be it city or county? I admit I hadn’t given it much thought, but it seems weird that these would be autonomous bodies.

I’d also like to add re: Sheriff v. City Police - even in some densely popluated areas, cities will contract with the Sheriff’s office rather than try to field their own police force. I know this happens in Los Angeles County, which has 90+ individual city governments, many of the smaller/less affluent of which pay the county to provide emergency services (Sheriff, Fire, EMT, etc.). More economical and less bureauacracy that way.

34

But all must conform to the US Constitution, and the Bill Of Rights.

And local & State laws are subordinate to Federal ones.

So, “semi-autonomous” is not entirely inaccurate.

35

“Semi-autonomous” implies exactly the opposite of what you said. States are not semi-autonomous. They are fully part of the United States and are fully subject to the laws of the United States.

No.

For large institutions, such as universities and transit systems, their police departments usually do not operate as part of the local police department. They are entirely separate, although they might not have the full authority of the police. They might have to call in the police to investigate serious crimes. Even if they are required to co-operate with the police department, they definitely do not operate as a division of the police department.

For small institutions, their security/police departments operate as private entities with limited law enforcement powers. They do not usually operate as part of the local police department.

36

Nitpick:
In at least one US county, the sheriff’s office lost arrest powers due to some political changes … I believe they were relegated by the legislature to purely administrative services. Basically they became a bunch of overpaid process servers.
The police chief actually threatened to charge any deputies driving around in cars with light bars on them with the same statute he’d charge a civilian with for driving around with light bars attached.

37

hing to udnerstand about the U.S. is that it is a vast experiment. Every state is more or less free to vary its programs according to its needs. The Federal government often holds out carrots to try and get states to do things its way - but there are very few sticks to use against states.

So New York’s model is different from Indiana which is different from California. Even within a state, you can find considerably differences between regions and counties. Most states, however, are fairly standardized based on the customs and habits which arose naturally as it was settled.

The Feds work this way, too. As new needs developed, Congress farmed them out to varying agencies. Some even started informally (such as the Secret Service’s bodyguard duties). As long as things more or less worked, no one felt the need to change the org chart to match some idealized vision of “rational” divisions of labor.

38

One very important distinction between Federal law officers and their state/county/city counterparts is that it is against the law to lie to a Federal investigator (it is not against the law to lie to any other cop). Martha Stewart did not go to jail for insider trading, she went to jail for lying to Federal investigators. They don’t need to advise you of your rights and you don’t have to be the target of the investigation for this to be true.

This is something to consider should the FBI come to your door. You don’t have to talk to them, but if you lie, you can go to jail.

39

That is incorrect. Lying to any law enforcement officer during an investigation is a crime at common law (obstruction of justice, among other charges.) The distinction is that it is a federal crime to lie to a federal law enforcement officer, and federal crimes are all based on statute offenses.

40

Oh, if it hasn’t become clear in the course of this discussion, in addition to the idea of local vs. statewide police, the U.S. is fairly hyped on the issue of federalism. The U.S. Constitution contains two things of interest to this question: (1) a list of powers given to the Federal government, largely in Article I’s powers of Congress but supplemented by material elsewhere in the original Constitution and in many of the Amendments; and (2) a list of rights guaranteed to the citizens as against violation by the Federal government. It’s the standard interpretation that the principles contained in that list are guaranteed as against violation by the states as well by the language of Amendment XIV, Section I.

This means that Federal cops can arrest you for a Federal crime, and Federal courts will try you for it. For the average citizen, these are pretty rare: income tax fraud, or traffic violations on a military base, a national park or monument, or inside Washington D.C. are about the only points where he/she will come into contact with the Federal law enforcement/court system.

However, there are several reasons why a case might end up in Federal court. First, in lawsuits between citizens of different states, state and federal court have concurrent jurisdiction, with a threshold, currently $75,000, for demanding consideration by a federal court (available either to plaintiff, to start the case, or defendant, to transfer it there). Second, almost any case in which there is “a federal question” can be reviewed by appeal to the Federal courts. In other words, if your car is stopped in Georgia and you/it are searched by a Georgia sheriff’s deputy, and you believe that the search was “unreasonable” under Amendment IV’s standard, you can appeal from the case in Georgia state court to the Federal courts, who can override Georgia’s decision. That’s why the U.S. Supreme Court is the final authority for most U.S. jurisprudence. When a case is decided strictly on the basis of state law, with no issues involving the Federal laws and Constitution raised, the highest court of the individual state is the final authority for that case.