That would be the same authority that a judge has over anyone else in the county. It’s not because a sheriff qua sheriff is a subordinate elected official. And, indeed, a sheriff wouldn’t be subject to ordinary “orders” as an employee to an employer. Elected sheriffs aren’t obligated to just follow any instructions of a judge. The judge would have to issue an actual judicial order like he would have to do with anyone else.
I don’t have any reason to believe that elected sheriffs are obligated to follow instructions of a prosecutor. Their mandates are quite separate anyway.
I would have to see something that says so. In Ohio, anyway, the sheriff is the highest law enforcement officer in a county, within or without city limits. Many sheriff’s departments have arrangements with city police departments to coordinate who will patrol what parts of the county, but that doesn’t give the city mayor any authority over the sheriff within the county. There are situations in some states in which a city is not actually jurisdictionally part of the adjacent county. That’s a different issue.
Agreed. Sheriffs in Ohio are typically responsible for security in the county courthouse and other county facilities such as the county jail, and may patrol unincorporated areas or in towns or cities where that has been arranged with the mayor or police chief (tends to be in poor, crime-ridden places). Under the recently-adopted county charter system in Cuyahoga County (greater Cleveland), the sheriff is appointed by the elected county executive and reports to him, but in all of Ohio’s other 87 counties, the sheriff is elected by county voters, and answers to no one but them.
That would depend. In San Jose city, and Santa Clara county, The Sheriff has the responsibality for county property and the areas around the VTA transportation system.
Yes a sheriff would be subject to any legal orders from a judge, the same as a judge would be subject to any ligal orders from the Sheriff or a deputy.
The sheriff is mad that the county board of supervisors is giving his office a hard time about the budget. At about 1:40 the sheriff reports someone at the county threatened that unless the sheriff provided the county certain budgetary information about how the sheriff intends to use county funds, then the county would have to use its budgetary power to control the sheriff’s office. The sheriff then begins to tell the county to shove it.
As I understand government concepts, IANAL, power resides in the “sovereign” and no where else. In the US, at the state level, that is the state government. A local government receives it’s power from enabling legislation passed by the state government. What they grant they can take away. They define the relationships among the local authorities. If they put the sheriff under the control of the mayor (never heard of such a situation), they can do that. And the sheriff can head for the state capital and get that changed. Authority is whatever is defined by the sovereign government-that at least partly defines sovereign.