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Oklahoma The Office of Sheriff is one of antiquity. It is the oldest
law enforcement office known within the common-law system and it has
always been accorded great dignity and high trust. For the most
part, the Office of Sheriff evolved out of necessity. Were it not
for laws which require enforcing, there would have been no necessity
for the Sheriff. There would have been no need for the development
of police administration, criminology, criminalists, etc. This is
not the case, however. Man learned quite early that all is not
orderly in the universe. All times and all places have generated
those who covet the property of their neighbors and who are willing
to expropriate this property by any means. As such, man's quest for
equity and order gave birth to the Office of Sheriff, the history of
which begins in the Old Testament and continues through the annals
of Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, there is no honorable law
enforcement authority in Anglo-American law so ancient as that of
the County Sheriff. And today, as in the past, the County Sheriff is
a peace officer entrusted with the maintenance of law and order and
the preservation of domestic tranquility.
Sheriffs have served and protected the English-speaking peoples for
a thousand years. The Office of Sheriff and the law enforcement,
judicial and correctional functions he performs are more than 1000
years old. The Office of Sheriff dates back at least to the reign of
Alfred the Great of England, and some scholars even argue that the
Office of Sheriff was first created during the Roman occupation of
England.
Around 500 AD, Germanic tribes from Europe (called the Anglo-Saxons)
began an invasion of Celtic England which eventually led over the
centuries to the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon England as a unified
kingdom under Alfred the Great late in the 9th Century. Alfred
divided England into geographic units called "shires", or counties.
In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons and
instituted his own Norman government in England. Both under the
Anglo-Saxons and under the Normans, the King of England appointed a
representative called a "reeve" to act on behalf of the king in each
shire or county. The "shire-reeve" or King's representative in each
county became the "Sheriff" as the English language changed over the
years. The shire-reeve or Sheriff was the chief law enforcement
officer of each county in the year 1000 AD. He still has the same
function in Oklahoma in the year 2000 AD.
Oklahoma’s first constitution, adopted in July 1907, created the
Office of Sheriff as an elected official in each county. The
concepts of "county" and "Sheriff" were essentially the same as they
had been during the previous 900 years of English legal history.
Because of the English heritage of the American colonies, the new
United States adopted the English law and legal institutions as its
owner.
Oklahoma’s constitution has been revised several times through the
years, but the constitutional provisions establishing the Office of
Sheriff remains the same as it was in 1907, which, in turn, is
strikingly similar to the functioning of the Office of Sheriff at
the time of Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror. The major
difference, of course, is that the Kings of England appointed their
Sheriffs. From the earliest times in America, our Sheriffs have been
elected by the people to serve as the principal law enforcement
officer of each county.
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