Citation Numbers: 66 Op. Att'y Gen. 315
Judges: BRONSON C. La FOLLETTE, Attorney General
Filed Date: 11/21/1977
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 4/15/2017
DAVID T. PROSSER, JR., District Attorney, Outagamie County
You request my opinion whether a person who is a nonresident of Outagamie County may be appointed and serve as full-time deputy sheriff. I am advised that Outagamie County does not have a civil service system for deputy sheriffs pursuant to sec.
I am of the opinion that a person appointed deputy sheriff pursuant to sec.
I have reviewed 45 Op. Att'y Gen. 267 (1956), which comes to a somewhat similar conclusion. When that opinion was written, sec.
The 1956 opinion concluded that a deputy sheriff was a public officer, in part because sec.
". . . Any public office . . . shall become or be deemed vacant upon the happening of any of the following events:
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"(4) His ceasing to be an inhabitant of this state; or if the office is local, his ceasing to be an inhabitant of the district, county, city, village, town, aldermanic district or school district for which he was elected or within which the duties of his office are required to be discharged . . . ." (Emphasis added.)
A deputy sheriff is a county officer rather than a county employe. See 3 Op. Att'y Gen. 672 (1914) and 65 Op. Att'y Gen. 292 (1976).
A deputy sheriff, just as a sheriff, primarily performs his duties within his given county, although he may go outside the county without departing from duty in case of pursuit, delivery of prisoners and to assist other law enforcement agencies. See secs.
You also inquire whether a person can be appointed as a deputy sheriff in more than one county.
This question was answered no in 62 Op. Att'y Gen. 250 (1973), which reconsidered and reaffirmed the opinion in 45 Op. Att'y Gen. 267 (1956), but which stated that secs.
Even if residency in the county were not required by statute, it is my opinion that the county board of supervisors could require residency by ordinance under the provisions of sec.
The United States Supreme Court has held that a municipal ordinance requiring firemen to live within the city did not violate constitutional provisions as to the right to interstate travel, the due process clause or equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. McCarthy v. Philadelphia Civil ServiceComm., *Page 318
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