Carl Bruning is running as “Your Constitution Sheriff” for Larimer County. This document explains what that means.
A Constitutional Sheriff stands firm with the U.S. Constitution and the Colorado Constitution – as they are written and intended by the founders – defining a republic with liberty and justice for all. A Constitutional Sheriff places the constitutional protected rights of the people above revenue generation, political agendas, or federal, state, and judicial mandates. A Constitutional Sheriff works with federal and state agencies to ensure the rights of the citizens are not infringed. This is a system very different from what we typically experience today. It’s a system best defined in modern times by former Sheriff Mack. [see: www.sheriffmack.com]
Today, there are ten’s of thousands of laws, rules, regulations, directives, ordinances and other enforceable requirements – that act as law – placed upon the American people. The Colorado State Legislature enacts several hundred new laws and requirements each year, and they are but one of many rule making bodies. The “Colorado Peace Officers Handbook” – a 1496-page small print condensed version of Colorado Law – is still overwhelming for anyone to fully grasp and administer. As Harvey Silvergate argues in his book “Three Felonies a Day”, almost everyone commits at least three felonies every day. Many laws conflict with other laws so it’s impossible to obey one without violating another, leaving it to attorneys and courts to sort out when conflicting laws are enforced. As a result, only a few hundred of the myriad of laws actually get any significant enforcement, they are then only selectively enforced, and the overloaded court system typically plea bargains them to something less.
This selective enforcement results in law enforcement for profit rather than law enforcement for right versus wrong. In the end it’s mostly about how can we extract the most dollars from people by charging people with multiple counts for a single act and then plea bargaining most of it away if they agree to pay a significant fine. It involves targeting those who are least capable of defending themselves – the young and underprivileged – in order to minimize the cost of collecting the most revenue. It results in prejudicial profiling.
To compound the problem, over the past 30 years the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have progressively held that law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judiciary have immunity in many acts in their conduct of business. When this immunity from recourse is combined with selective and prejudicial enforcement, it results in the precursor to what is commonly called a police state. It results in a system of tyranny as was warned by Thomas Jefferson; “when the people fear the government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
A constitutional sheriff must still engage in selective law enforcement, but it’s based upon criteria without regard for someone’s social status or profile.
- Was there harm to person or property?
- Was there criminal intent or was it merely an accident or stupid mistake?
- Was a law broken?
- Is the law consistent with the Colorado and U.S. Constitutions – including their amendments – as written and intended by their founders?
Only when these criteria are met is someone charged with a crime and referred to the District Attorney. With this kind of law enforcement we will reduce the load on our judicial system, reduce the need to plea bargain violent criminals, reduce the burden on our jail, and reduce the need for more taxpayer dollars. Of course it may put some attorneys out of business and reduce the ever expanding empire building within the impacted branches of government.
