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The sheriff and his deputies are inter-
ested in the people, and they do a reason-
ably good and excellent job in Harford
County. They do also in other counties,
and I understand eighteen of the counties,
the sheriff is the chief officer. I suggest to
you that you permit us to keep through the
agency of the General Assembly our sheriff.
I suggest to you the present amendment
does not require a sheriff in the other
counties but permits the General Assembly
on a county-by-county basis to provide a
sheriff where it thinks it appropriate; and
if the delegates think they might vote
against this measure, I suggest to you there
is a tall man out there calling, Sheriff Dil-
lon, looking for you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: May I yield two
minutes to Delegate Schneider, Chairman
of our Subcommittee?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Schneider.
DELEGATE SCHNEIDER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen: The Committee
on the Judiciary studied the problems of
sheriff very closely, and we came to the
conclusion that since it is not a uniform
office, since it is different in Prince George's
from what Baltimore County has, which is
different yet from what Baltimore City
has, and yet different from Montgomery
and altogether different from Harford
County, that it is not a uniform office, and
not being uniform, it should not be man-
dated in the constitution.
Now, the Minority Report calls for a
"may" provision, a permissive provision in
the constitution.
I submit the constitutional silence will be
permissive. It will allow the office of sheriff
if the General Assembly so feels fit to put
in the constitution the word "may". To put
"sheriff" in is to put in a lot of words\and
keep the sheriff's name before the conHi-
tution but nothing else.
We have an act in one other article on
this floor in which we put the word "may".
We had a good reason then, as we had other
structural items put into that article. That
was the section on the militia. That was
important to put the militia "may", in
there, unless you put nothing at all. Here
if we put "may" in, we are just adding
extra language.
The committee recommendation will be
the transitory provision to provide that the
office of sheriff continue long enough to
allow the phaseout in the counties that do
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not see a need for the office. The counties
that do see a need for the office, as their
chief law enforcement officer, will be al-
lowed to establish the office, and counties
where he is not of such importance as he
perhaps is in the small counties, where we
have just heard he is of great importance
the office can be abolished. I would urge
you go with the Committee once more and
defeat this useless provision as offered.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Johnson,
you have two minutes to allocate.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: I yield that
time, Mr. Chairman, to Delegate Grant.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Grant.
DELEGATE GRANT: You cannot very
well understand constitutional law without
understanding the history behind it. The
sheriff was the very first official of any im-
portance to appear on any scene. After
that, and after he was established, or es-
tablished some kind of order, then you got
law. It is perfectly true in the urban coun-
ties that the people have become sophisti-
cated, become urban, they have extensive
law enforcement agencies of their own. His
duties in those counties, I would point out
to you, are really not still very similar to
what he must do in the more primitive,
less settled counties where he must also go
out after criminals. For the same reasons
that Judge Henderon brought up as to why
we had to make a clerk of the court an
elective office because it was such an office
to unscramble, I suggest to you you have
the same problem with the sheriff. The
sheriff in addition to the law enforcement
duties for which he is most glamorously
known also has to perform duties of ju-
dicial sales, which makes him become a
member of the state judicial system. I point
out to you that in the local government
article all judicial powers have been with-
drawn from the local governments; that if
you wish the sheriff to perform these ju-
dicial functions, you have to make some
provision for it. It is perfectly true that
the situation does very much vary from
county to county. However, I would point
out to you that the amendment that is
proposed permits a variation from county
to county. This is one of the rare instances
in which it was felt that there should be
a variation from county to county in the
acts of the General Assembly.
This is simply an enabling piece of legis-
lation, to enable the General Assembly to
enact a law to provide an official to per-
form a very minimal service, if necessary,
of judicial sale, or a very maximal service
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