This is, I think, the best headline ever from the NJ: Legal brief throws shade at sheriff. Noting that the Sheriff is appealing to the Supreme Court to give him a job that no longer exists, the Sussex County brief definitely gets to the original intent of the Founders on Sheriffs:
It helps Sussex County’s case in the Christopher litigation to argue the state legislature is free to define and refine a modern sheriff’s duties. So the county’s brief argues delegates to a Delaware constitutional convention in 1897 wanted the General Assembly to do that kind of tinkering, and didn’t use the state constitution to set a sheriff’s duties in stone.
Then the county brings this burn: “It was clear sheriffs were not held in high regard by the delegates who commented on the ‘extraordinary methods’ and means by which people attempted to be elected due to the perceived bloat and graft coupled with the position.“
Funny how close the original thinking of the Delaware convention delegates is to pretty much everyone else in Delaware about these Sherrifs. All the more reason to make them appointed, really. Also interesting that the Sheriff’s brief wants to invoke British tradition regarding Sheriffs (because the modern, Delawarean tradition and law is simply not suitable, one would guess) cites British law to help make his case. The Sheriff of Nuttingham indeed.