Author Archives: Kim

Accessorize!

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“Sally, darling, would you please open the bottle of wine?”

Sally smiled at her dashing boyfriend, who was busy pan-searing their steaks. “Sure, honey. Where’s the corkscrew?” She opened a kitchen drawer, closed it when she saw it contained nothing but take-out menus, and then opened the drawer next to it. She found a wadded ball of knitted fabric. Curious, she examined the object more closely. “What’s this, honey?”

Carl glanced over his shoulder. “A cap.”

“It’s… a ski mask.”

“Yes.”

“Do you ski?” She found this unlikely since they lived in Florida, but anything was possible.

“No. I hate the cold.”

“Then why do you have a ski mask?”

“I wear it when I rob banks.” He gave her a devilish smile. “It’s my accessory to crime.”

Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

What is an accessory to crime? Specific definitions vary by jurisdiction, but a good general definition is this: an accessory is someone who helps commit a crime but doesn’t actually commit the crime itself. The parties who do commit the criminal act are called the principals. A person may be an accessory before or after the fact, depending on when the assistance is given.

Suppose Carl’s car is in the shop, and he asks Sally if he can borrow hers for his next bank heist. She says sure and hands over the keys. She’s now an accessory before the fact. In most of the US, if she was aware she was helping him commit a crime, she is liable for the same punishment as Carl, even though she wasn’t actually at the bank. Not only that. If he shoots and kills someone during the robbery, she’s liable for felony murder—potentially a capital offense—as long as the prosecutor can show that murder was a reasonably foreseeable outcome of a bank robbery.

On the other hand, suppose Carl’s car is doing fine. He doesn’t borrow hers and doesn’t tell her he plans to rob First National Savings & Loan. But after the robbery, he shows up at her place with a bag of money and a big smile. “Darling, would you do me a favor and stash this sack of cash in your closet? Oh, and if anyone asks, tell them I was here all day, okay?” If she agrees, she’s an accessory after the fact. She’s going to end up being charged with something like obstructing justice. The prosecutor will have to prove she knew Carl had committed a crime and she intended to help him get away with it. She will not be punished as severely as Carl, and if he happened to kill someone during that robbery, she can’t be charged with felony murder.

What about an accomplice (sometimes called an aider and abettor)? They also help commit crimes, but they’re present at the scene. Suppose Sally drives Carl to the bank—knowing he’ll rob it—waits in the parking lot until he comes running out and jumps into the passenger seat, and then drives away. She’s an accomplice. And just like an accessory before the fact, she’s as criminally liable as Carl.

There are all sorts of interesting twists we can add. What if Carl gets killed by a police officer during the robbery? If Sally helped him, she’s still liable for any crimes he committed. She could even be charged with his murder—even though she wasn’t there and a cop lawfully shot him! Or what if Carl’s a snake and rats her out in exchange for a plea deal? Then Sally might do more time than him. We can imagine her fuming in prison.

Accomplice liability offers the possibility of all sorts of interesting plot twists. And a bad pun or two.

 

Punished

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The Lord Ynix’ba looked down his long nose at the prisoner. “I find you guilty of stealing the Five Sparkling Dragon Stones of Zenthibon.”

The prisoner shook his head frantically. “No! No, my Lord! You don’t understand! There was this witch, you see, and she—”

“Guilty!”

The prisoner’s shackles rattled as he collapsed to the ground, sobbing. His crying was so loud that Lord Ynix’ba had to wait several minutes before announcing the sentence. The lord tapped his foot impatiently and played with the jewels in his bracelet.

Finally the prisoner was reduced to sniffles, and that was when Lord Ynix’ba spoke again. “I hereby sentence you to the maximum possible punishment—twenty years in Zenthibon Prison!”

With fresh wails, the prisoner was hauled away.

Okay, it’s your fantasy world. If you want to throw your criminals in prison, that’s your affair. But I urge you to think carefully before tossing those poor souls into cells and throwing away the keys.

The truth is, prisons are mostly a modern invention. Incarceration has been used for many hundreds of years, but rarely as a form of punishment. People were locked up in jails (or gaols, if you please) and in institutions such as poorhouses and workhouses, but the primary purpose of locking them up was to hold them until their trials. That’s still one of the main reasons people are kept in jails. Prisoners might also be locked up because they couldn’t pay their debts or because they were destitute and couldn’t support themselves. Again, though, punishment was not the main goal; they were sort of being held as collateral for their own debts.

So how were people punished? For more severe crimes, they were usually executed. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly and painfully. Almost always in public. In fact, executions served as a form of entertainment in times and places where entertainment was in short supply.

For less severe offenses, there were other options. Public punishments were common—think stocks and the like. The criminals would face a period of public scorn and humiliation before returning to their homes, families, and livelihoods. Corporal punishment—i.e., physical punishment—was also widely used. Flogging, branding, maiming, etc. Criminals could be made to pay fines. They could be sentenced to slavery or other forms of servitude. They could be banished. When Europeans were colonizing the New World, sometimes criminals were sentenced to transportation, which means they were forcibly taken to America (or later, Australia), where they had to work for a certain number of years before being freed.

But imprisonment—incarceration as punishment—was very uncommon. Why? Well, it’s expensive, it removes the prisoner from the workforce (which perhaps sends his family into poverty), and it keeps the bad guys behind walls, where their punishment isn’t visible and therefore might have little deterrent effect on the rest of society.

Prison as a punishment didn’t become popular until after the American Revolution, when it was touted as a humanitarian reform. “Keep miscreants locked up by themselves,” the argument went, “so they have time to reflect on their wrongdoing and reform themselves. Allow them to be penitent.” Yes, that’s where we get the term penitentiary.

Nowadays. of course, we lock people up all the time, especially in the US. But if you’re writing a historical set before the 18th century, prison probably shouldn’t be the fate of your criminals. And if you’re writing fantasy, sci-fi, or other kinds of speculative fiction, you should think carefully about whether prison as punishment makes sense in your world.

As for Lord Ynix’ba, if he’s decided that stealing those eggs was truly a big deal, our miserable prisoner will likely be fed to the orcs instead.

 

Juvie

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I’m going to start this post with a piece of solid advice: If you’re writing a story in which a person committing a crime is under 18 years old, research your state laws. The criminal justice system in general varies across jurisdictions, but that variance is especially notable when it comes to juvenile justice.

Here are some things you should consider:

  • The minimum age at which a person can be tried as an adult varies by offense and by state
  • The maximum age at which a person can be tried as a juvenile varies by offense and by state
  • The process of waiver (moving a case from juvenile to adult court) varies by offense and by state
  • The maximum age at which a juvenile offender can be incarcerated in a juvenile facility varies by state

Juvenile proceedings use different terminology than adult criminal ones, in part to avoid stigma. For example, it’s a hearing instead of a trial. The juvenile is adjudicated delinquent instead of being found guilty. He’s given a disposition instead of a sentence.

Juveniles are entitled to many of the same procedural protections as adults, including the rights to an attorney, to remain silent, and to appeal. What juveniles don’t get is a jury. The judge makes the decisions.

In theory, the purpose of the juvenile system is to rehabilitate rather than punish. It’s questionable how well the system lives up to this, but there are generally more dispositions available for juveniles than for adults.

Don’t assume that juvenile proceedings won’t come back to haunt an adult. In California, for example, certain juvenile adjudications can count as “strikes” that can later qualify the adult for a lengthy prison term if he gains a third strike. Juvenile records aren’t necessarily sealed—and even when they are, they may still be accessible to law enforcement and other agencies.

Finally, juvenile offenders may sometimes end up incarcerated in adult facilities. Most advocacy and policy organizations strongly recommend that this not happen, but it does.

 

 

Jails Versus Prisons

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Officer Carson smirked as she tightened the handcuffs. “How does it feel?” she asked.

“Dandy,” growled Scott Johnson.

“No, I’m the one feeling dandy, Johnson. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Johnson raised his chin. “Yeah? Well, don’t get too excited. This thing is bullshit, and at worst, I’m gonna cop a plea. I ain’t gonna be spending much time in jail.”

Undaunted, Carson pushed him into the back of the patrol car. “Sure, Johnson. But you’ll be spending a good long time in prison.”

If I had a list of the most annoying things authors get wrong about criminal justice, confusing jails with prisons would be near the top. Yes, I know laypeople use the terms interchangeably. But a jail is actually a very different place than a prison, with different populations and different goals.

Jails (in some countries, spelled gaols) have been around for many hundreds of years. As was true in medieval England, the primary purpose of US jails is to hold pretrial detainees: people who have been accused of crimes and are awaiting trial. Some people who are awaiting trial are released on bail (a money deposit paid to ensure the defendant’s appearance at trial) or released on their own recognizance (with no guarantee except their promise to appear in court). But some can’t afford bail or, if they’re accused of very serious crimes or are flight risks, are denied bail altogether. Even though we’re supposed to presume them innocent, those people will sit in jail until their trial.

The second big group in jail are people who have been convicted of misdemeanors or minor felonies and who are serving sentences of less than a year. Unlike the pretrial detainees, the members of this group are no longer presumed innocent. And they’re being held as punishment rather than to ensure their appearance at trial.

Jails may also hold other people. These might include those who are suspected of being mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others and who are waiting to be transferred to a mental health facility. It might also include juvenile offenders, especially in sparsely populated areas where there is no juvenile hall, and sometimes also undocumented aliens awaiting hearings or deportation.

Jails are usually run by local law enforcement authorities. In California, for example, sheriffs’ departments often run the jails. Jail inmates are generally held in the city or county where the crime occurred. Jails may be very dangerous places, partly due to overcrowding but also because those detained for minor (usually nonviolent) crimes are often mixed with pretrial detainees who may be very violent indeed.

Prisons hold people who have been convicted of felonies and sentenced to longer than a year. These facilities are usually run by the state or federal government. A good number of US prisons are now run by private corporations (this is a fairly controversial practice).

There are a wide variety of security levels for prisons, ranging from honor farms and minimum security—where there’s usually no wall around the facility—to supermax prisons, in which inmates are essentially kept in solitary confinement for the length of their sentence. There are separate prisons for women and men. There are also specialized prisons available for inmates suffering from severe mental illnesses.

Scott Johnson may not spend much time in jail; if he has money, he can probably post bail fairly soon. But if the plea bargain doesn’t work and he’s ultimately convicted of something serious, he’ll end up housed in prison for a long time. Much to Officer Carson’s satisfaction.

 

But I’m Innocent, I Say!

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Fred fidgeted as the jury filed into the courtroom. He couldn’t read their faces; they seemed neither happy nor sad. Just determined to announce their verdict. And, he guessed, eager to go home to their families.

He wondered if he’d ever get to go home. To his golden retriever, Spot, and his Siamese cat, Mr. Mittens. To his comfortable bed and his collection of Dr. Who bobbleheads. To his 75-inch television with Netflix and HBO and the surround sound speakers he’d installed himself, the quality so amazing that when he watched Star Wars, he could swear he was actually in the Millennium Falcon.

Or maybe he’d spend the rest of his life locked up in the state pen, doing time for a crime he didn’t commit.

The jury foreman stood and cleared his throat. Fred held his breath. “Your honor,” the foreman said. “We pronounce the defendant innocent!”

Fred fainted dead away.

Now, Fred probably fainted from relief. But if he knew anything about the law, he might instead have fainted because the author got things so very wrong.

In the US, there are only two verdicts a jury can issue in a criminal case: guilty or not guilty. That’s it. A guilty verdict means the jury found that the prosecutor proved every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. A not-guilty verdict means the jury found that the prosecutor failed to prove at least one element beyond a reasonable doubt.

There are a couple of implications in this. One is that a jury may be pretty sure the defendant committed the crime, but they must still find him not guilty (also called an acquittal) if they have a reasonable doubt about any element of the crime.

But another implication is that even if the jury is dead certain the defendant is innocent, the legal system doesn’t allow them to officially say so. All they can do is say he’s not guilty–and that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “innocent,” does it?

This situation helps us understand why someone can be acquitted of a crime but then successfully sued for the same actions. O.J. Simpson, for instance, was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her friend—because, presumably, the jury had a doubt about some of the evidence. But when the victims’ families sued him for wrongful death, the families won judgments against him of over $35 million. The standard of proof in civil cases is much lighter than in a criminal case; in civil cases, it’s just a preponderance of the evidence (meaning the winning side has slightly more evidence in its favor). While the criminal jury found the evidence insufficient to meet the high burden in a criminal case, the civil jury found the evidence against Simpson more convincing than not.

Some states do have procedures that allow people accused of crimes to have a court declare them factually innocent, but these procedures are used only rarely and in limited circumstances.

So if the jury finds our friend Fred not guilty, he will get to return home to his beloved pets and his home entertainment system. Unfortunately, he may find that the trial and the criminal accusations hang over him for years, especially since they’re matters of public record. Hopefully, Spot and Mr. Mittens will console him.

 

 

 

Pressing Charges

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Ralph stood, arms crossed, as his ex-boyfriend broke down in tears.

“I’m so sorry!” Zachary sobbed. “I shouldn’t have stolen your wallet. I shouldn’t have used your cash to buy five hundred bucks’ worth of free weights and protein powder. I shouldn’t have used your credit card to buy plane tickets to Cabo for me and that guy I met at the gym. Please forgive me!”

Not in a forgiving mood, Ralph shook his head. “Too late. I’ve already filed a police report. I bet there’s a warrant out for you.”

Zachary wailed and fell to his knees. “I’m begging you, Ralph! I don’t want to go to jail. Please don’t press charges!”

Ralph just smiled.

Why is Ralph smiling? Because he knows something his cheating, stealing ex does not: it’s too late for what Zachary is asking.

Victims of crime generally have a choice whether to report it. And they can later make some decisions about how cooperative they want to be in aiding the police investigation. But the only one who can decide whether to press charges is the prosecutor.

This rule has two implications. First, even if a victim decides he doesn’t want the perp to go to jail, he can’t stop the prosecutor from bringing charges. And second, if a prosecutor decides for any reason not to bring charges, there’s nothing the victim can do about it. I know you’ve heard otherwise on a zillion TV shows and probably read otherwise in a zillion books. Ignore all that. The power to bring a criminal case belongs exclusively to the prosecutor. Not to victims, not to cops, not to judges.

Why? This goes to something I’ve blogged about before: the CJ system is intended to act on behalf of society as a whole. Not on behalf of victims. And the prosecutor is, essentially, representing society. You can guess this when you look at criminal case names, which often look like People v. Smith or New Jersey v. Jones. The inhabitants of that state as a whole are one of the parties, and they’re represented by the prosecutor. The victim is not a party to the case.

Now, victims do have some options. As I said, it’s often up to the victim whether to report the crime to police. If Ralph never told the police about Zachary’s misdeeds, the prosecutor would probably never have known that Zachary broke the law, and therefore no charges would have been filed. The victim can also decide how fully to cooperate. Technically, the prosecutor could use various legal means  (such as deposition and subpoena) to force Ralph to answer questions and testify in court. But in practice, if the victim is uncooperative, it’s often tough to get a conviction, so prosecutors may drop the case.

Regardless of what happens with the criminal case, Ralph can also choose to bring a civil lawsuit against Zachary. If he wins, Ralph can try to reclaim his monetary losses. But dragging it into court may not be worth it if the dollar amount is small or if attorney fees will eat up most of it. Or if Zachary is a deadbeat and has no way to pay the judgment.

The takeaway for you as a writer? Victims don’t press charges; prosecutors—and only prosecutors—do.

And Ralph needs to have better taste in boyfriends.

 

Jury of Your Peers

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Marvin watched nervously as the jurors filed into the courtroom. None of them looked friendly. In fact, they looked mean. They all glared as if they’d already decided his guilt, even though the trial hadn’t even begun.

Swallowing thickly, Marvin tried very hard to look innocent. The tattoos on his cheeks—the ones that read DEADLY and KILLER—probably didn’t help. He should have listened to his mother. Too late, too late.

But as he noticed something else, he sat up straighter in the hard wooden chair. All of the jurors were at least twenty years older than he was, and unlike him, not a single one wore the purple braids indicating that he or she worshiped the Great Agapanthus Goddess.

Excited, Marvin poked his lawyer. “Hey! Hey!” Marvin whispered. “It’s a miscarriage of justice. It’s not a jury of my peers!”

Marvin’s lawyer gave him a pitying look. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

Marvin’s screwed.

The language about a jury of one’s peers is old, having first appeared in the Magna Carta in 1215. Because I’m a nerd, here it is in the original Latin:

Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut disseisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super cum ibimus, nec super cum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terre.

And here’s the translation:

No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The Latin word parium had a very specific intention back in the 13th century. It meant the members of a jury had to be no lower in social standing than the defendant. And since the primary purpose of the Magna Carta was to limit the rights of the king with respect to what he could do to other members of the nobility, the barons who wrote the thing weren’t intending to protect common people at all.

Flash forward half a millennium and across the Atlantic. When James Madison wrote the 6th Amendment to the US Constitution, he was certainly influenced by the text of the Magna Carta (and by the English Constitution):

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

But look what’s happened: there’s no mention at all of peers.

As a matter of practice, the 6th Amendment is interpreted to mean that a jury must be fairly representative of the community in which the crime took place. Not precisely representative, and not the same as the defendant himself. This means that potential jurors can’t be excluded because of certain factors, such as race, religion, gender, and so on. But in reality, juries are generally comprised of people who are older and more affluent than defendants—in part because poor people can’t afford to lose income while serving on a jury.

So where does this leave Marvin? Nowhere good, unless he can prove that the prosecutor systematically excluded young potential jurors and those who were loyal Agapanthans. Proving that is very difficult, though.

Marvin should have listened to his mother.

 

Where’s the Justice?

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What happens in the courtroom has nothing to do with justice.

Today I’m addressing this issue posed by author Cody Kennedy. His upcoming novel, Thárros, deals with exactly this issue.

But how can I argue this? Criminal justice has justice right there in its title, right? Is it false advertising? Yeah, sort of. And be forewarned: this post contains my opinions. They’re well-informed opinions, though, with years of experience behind them, so I stand by them.

Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

  • Criminal justice has little or nothing to do with victims. It wasn’t designed to. We already have a civil justice system that allows people to demand monetary compensation for their losses via lawsuits. Nothing the CJ system does to convicted offenders—fines, probation, incarceration, death penalty—does victims any good, apart from perhaps giving them some sense of safety, satisfaction, or closure. (An exception to this is restitution, in which the offender pays the defendant directly to compensate for damage from the crime.) Victims play only a minor part in the CJ system, aside from their roles as complainants and witnesses and perhaps the submission of a victim impact statement before the defendant is sentenced. Those who study the CJ system say it acts on behalf of society as a whole, not on behalf of victims. In fact, sometimes victims may even be harmed by the process.
  • The primary principle behind the CJ system is due process, not justice. What does that mean? It means that the system aims for fairness. It exercises great care to make sure that rather complex procedures are followed. But even when the system is perfectly fair—which it isn’t always—it won’t necessarily be just. Some people we know to be guilty are going to go free because a cop screwed up. Some people we’re pretty sure are innocent are going to stay in prison because the proper channels were all followed at trial and during appeals but the exculpatory evidence (evidence that gets them off the hook) didn’t show up until it’s too late. Neither of these situations is just, but they are consistent with due process.
  • Prosecutors (and others) are practical. Currently, only 3 out of 1000 serious criminal acts result in a trial. I’ve blogged about this already. For now, what you should know is that prosecutors won’t charge someone with a crime unless they’re pretty sure they can get a conviction. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that district attorneys are elected, and they need good conviction rates to get reelected. In addition, there is huge pressure all around to plea bargain—to offer a defendant lesser charges if he pleads guilty. Without plea bargaining, our courts would be hopelessly backlogged. But this expediency means that even when it’s pretty clear that someone has committed a crime, there’s a good chance she won’t be charged with it at all, or that she’ll end up with a conviction for something much less serious.
  • The courtroom itself is a cipher. What if we have one of those rare cases that makes it to court? Human beings are going to make decisions about which evidence to present—decisions that are strategic but may not seem just. And a human being is going to make a decision about guilt. In fact, in the US that decision will probably be made by a group of a dozen human beings. One of my areas of academic research is jury decision making, so I can assure you that juries are strange beasts. They get influenced by all sorts of things, including the attributes of the defendant and witnesses and attorneys, as well as the specific ways the evidence was presented and arguments were made. And that’s not really justice either.

Now, having written all that, I need to add two things. Our CJ system is highly fallible. It makes mistakes. It’s used discriminatorily. It’s unfair. But. I also think it beats many of the alternatives and is far superior to the justice systems in much of the world.

What does this mean to you as an author? Remember that the CJ system is, ultimately, made of people. Like a good character, your CJ system should be imperfect. And as you write (or read) keep in mind the realities of the CJ system, and don’t try to make it do things it just doesn’t do.

 

 

Order in the Court

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Straight-backed and steely-eyed, Amanda Bennis gazed at the jury. “You’ve heard what the prosecutor has to say. Mr. Jones would have you believe that my client, poor sweet Jack Durham, is a monster. But you know in your heart that’s not true. Not a single shred of the prosecution’s evidence stands up to even the simplest scrutiny. Mr. Durham has never harmed anyone in his life. Please do the right thing. Uphold justice—let my client go!”

Although Amanda’s voice rang strongly throughout the packed courtroom, everyone could tell that the jury wasn’t swayed. Twelve pairs of eyes glared in Jack’s direction, twelve mouths turned down in scowls. Jack blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay. He was an innocent man, but nobody except Amanda cared. He was going to rot in prison.

But then, just as all hope was lost, a man stood up from his seat near the back of the courtroom. “Jack didn’t do it!” he yelled. “It was I!”

As the room erupted into chaos, Jack began to sob. Thank God. His evil twin had finally seen the light.

Dramatic courtroom scenes: the bread-and-butter of countless movies, TV shows, and books. Fun to watch, fun to write. In real life, though, few cases ever make it to court.

Criminologists like to talk about the funnel model of criminal justice. Out of every 1000 serious crimes that happen in the US, only about half are reported to police. Eighty percent of the reported crimes go unsolved, meaning we’re left with only 100 arrests. Sixty percent of those defendants will be referred to juvenile court or have their cases dropped early by the prosecutor. Ten of the remaining forty will jump bail or flee, never to face trial. So we’re left with only 30 cases going to trial.

But wait! There’s more! Of those 30 cases, 27 will result in plea bargains, almost always well before anyone steps into the courtroom. If you’ve done the math, you’ll realize that out of 1000 cases, only three will end up before a jury. (Of those three cases, two will result in convictions and one in an acquittal.)

It may be a little discouraging to look at these statistics, and the practice of plea bargaining is controversial. But imagine how backlogged our courts would be if the vast majority of criminal cases didn’t shake out before going to court.

It’s fine if you want to include courtroom scenes in your book. Just keep in mind how rare they are. You might want to acknowledge, at least in passing, that plea bargains are the norm. Give your defendant a good reason for refusing the plea deal—but give your prosecutor a strong enough case that it’s credible she’d bother to take it to trial.

 

There’s a New Sheriff in Town

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Curly Bill Cutter and his band of outlaws rushed out of the Perseverance City Bank, pistols in hand and pouches of gold nuggets and greenbacks stuffed into their clothing. But as they raced toward their horses, a man stood in their way. He was tall and lean, with a white Stetson on his head and a thousand-yard stare in his squinty pale eyes. “Hold on there, partners,” he drawled.

Laughing derisively, Curly Bill and his compadres pointed their weapons. But the tall man moved with preternatural grace, unholstering his weapon faster than an eye could track and taking down an outlaw with each bullet. When he was done, five bodies lay still in the dust, and one bullet remained in the chamber. The tall man blew on his weapon before settling it smoothly back in its holster. Then he tipped his hat slightly at a young woman in calico. “Howdy there, ma’am. There’s a new sheriff in town.”

Okay, I may have a bit of unhealthy interest in bad westerns. But we’ve all seen this scene or one like it. Have you ever wondered where that sheriff came from? Turns out he wasn’t a product of the Wild West at all—our sheriff had his start long before that, in Merry Olde England.

Back then, counties were called shires (yes, like where the hobbits live). In an era when travel was rare and dangerous, kings had trouble keeping control of the local population. This state of affairs didn’t improve after the Norman Conquest, when the nobility might not even speak the same language as the locals. So the king would appoint a man to represent him. Depending on the time and place, this man was responsible for a number of things, including collecting taxes, keeping prisoners until the judge rode into town, and generally keeping the peace. His title was reeve. Shire reeve, to be exact. Sheriff.

Sheriffs were often corrupt and often not very popular—like Robin Hood’s nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham. Some of these problems were later addressed with a different royal appointee, the coroner. I’ll blog about coroners some other time.

English colonists brought the sheriff system with them to America, where it was used primarily in rural areas. (Urban areas developed a different system based more on the English constable). Since the western United States remained rural for a long time—and, in fact, much of it still is—sheriffs stuck around.

Nowadays, sheriffs are usually elected officials who hire deputies to conduct their work. Wild West sheriffs had deputies too, although often those men were volunteers and worked only for a short, specific time to round up particular bad guys. Sheriffs today provide most of the law enforcement duties in rural areas, including the running of the local jails, just as their counterparts did in England a millennium ago. They may also be charged with other duties such as serving warrants or housing the local coroners office.

An interesting thing about the policing system we inherited from the English is that is takes place mostly at the local rather than national level. I’ll blog about this later too.

Maybe it’s due to their long history, but a lot of enduring legends and archetypes are attached to sheriffs. Think Roscoe P. Coltrane from Dukes of Hazzard. Andy Taylor. Sheriff Bart from Blazing Saddles. Rick Grimes. Bat Masterson. Wyatt Earp. And our old friend, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Incidentally, don’t get sheriffs confused with another Old West staple, the marshal. There were both town marshals and US marshals. More on them later!