by Gerry Donaldson
Note: Includes material from Law Journal Article “Are Cops Constitutional?”
Growing up in America, we have come to believe that the mass numbers of law enforcement officers (Federal, State and Local) that we see in our daily lives are “normal.” However, professional police were COMPLETELY unknown to our American founders in 1789! Their first appearance in America was almost a half-century after the Constitution was ratified!
According to their writings, the Founders were committed to having law enforcement as primarily the duty of private citizens. The few appointed constables and sheriffs would only be called upon when necessary, predominantly for serving writs and performing civil duties. Modern law enforcement is in very many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America’s founders and our founding documents.
Uniformed law enforcement numbers have grown exponentially over the past century and now stand at hundreds of thousands nationwide. The average citizen is unaware that law enforcement expenses now account for the largest segment of most municipal budgets and generally dwarf the expenses for fire, trash, and sewer services.
The colonists who framed our Constitution would have seen the modern ‘police state’ as completely alien to their foremost principles. Under the criminal justice model, copied from the English Common Law, professional police and law enforcement officers were completely unknown.
The general public (meaning you and I) had broad law enforcement powers and only the executive functions of the law such as the execution of writs, warrants and orders, were performed by constables or sheriffs who regularly called upon members of the community for assistance. Even the initiation and investigation of criminal cases was the almost always carried out by individual citizens of the community!
h/t Robin
