A Law Unto Themselves

“Sheriff Joe” Arpaio is their godfather, and David A. Clarke, Jr., the recently-resigned Wisconsin sheriff who gained fame due to his tough conservative rhetoric and the many deaths that occurred in the Milwaukee County Jail under his authority, is their inspiration. They are the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or C.S.P.O.A., which claims about five thousand members, and the many more unaffiliated sheriffs who share the group’s core belief, that their interpretation of the Constitution is the only legitimate legal standard in the counties they police. According to Sheriff Nick Finch of Liberty County, Florida, the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which dictates that federal law takes precedence over state law, is irrelevant. So is the Supreme Court. “Why do those nine people get to decide what the rest of the country’s going to be like?” is his question. He and his fellow members of the “constitutional sheriffs” movement believe that there is only one way to interpret the country’s founding documents: pro-gun, anti-immigrant, anti-regulation and anti-Washington.