Municipal police have many duties, sometimes including enforcing municipal ordinances. Municipalities without their own police departments typically rely on the county sheriff to provide law enforcement services. The sheriff certainly has territorial jurisdiction to enforce state laws within city limits. But may the sheriff and his or her deputies also enforce municipal ordinances?
Putting the question more precisely. G.S. 160A-175 addresses the enforcement of municipal ordinances. It gives municipalities several options for enforcement. Cities may make a violation a misdemeanor or an infraction; may impose civil penalties for a violation; and may address violations through a court order or an injunction. If enforcement is through a court order or an injunction, it is clear that a sheriff or a deputy sheriff cannot enforce the ordinance. For that matter, neither may a municipal police officer. Because legal action is required, enforcement will necessarily fall to an attorney acting on the city’s behalf. Expressed more precisely, then, the question this post considers is whether a sheriff or a deputy may enforce a municipal ordinance when the ordinance is enforceable as a misdemeanor, as an infraction, or through civil penalties.
When the ordinance is enforceable as a misdemeanor. It used to be that most violations of municipal ordinances were misdemeanors. See G.S. 14-4(a) (providing that, with certain exceptions, “if any person shall violate an ordinance of a county, city, town, or metropolitan sewerage district . . . he shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor”). There are some relatively new limitations, discussed here, on which ordinances may carry misdemeanor penalties – and on the procedures a municipality must follow if it wants an ordinance to carry criminal penalties. But some ordinance violations remain punishable as misdemeanors, and it seems to me that a sheriff or a deputy may enforce such ordinances by arrest, citation, and the other usual methods of enforcing the criminal law. Under G.S. 15A-401, law enforcement officers generally may arrest for any criminal offense with a warrant or if the offense is committed in an officer’s presence. There’s no limitation or exclusion that would require an officer working in a sheriff’s office to treat a crime differently simply because the crime was created by a municipal ordinance. Similarly, G.S. 15A-302 states without limitation that “[a]n officer may issue a citation to any person who he has probable cause to believe has committed a misdemeanor or infraction.” This grant of authority does not seem to depend on how the misdemeanor or infraction was created.
When the ordinance is enforceable as an infraction. For similar reasons, a sheriff or a deputy may enforce an ordinance when a violation is punishable as an infraction. The normal method of enforcing infractions is through the issuance of citations, and as noted above, the citation statute does not limit a sheriff’s or a deputy’s authority to issue a citation based on whether an infraction is defined in state law or in a municipal ordinance. See also G.S. 15A-1111 (providing that the procedure for the disposition of infractions is the same as for misdemeanors unless otherwise specified), -1113 (providing, without limitation, that officers may issue citations for infractions based on probable cause and may briefly detain the person to be cited).
When the ordinance is enforceable by civil penalties. Some ordinances are enforceable only by civil penalties. For example, if a person in Asheville trims a shrub on city property without permission, that would violate section 20-21 of the Asheville Code of Ordinances. It is punishable by a civil penalty of $100 under section 2-53 of the Code of Ordinances. It is not punishable by a criminal penalty, nor could it be under state law. May a sheriff or a deputy enforce this ordinance? In this particular case, the answer is clearly no, because Asheville’s ordinances provide that unauthorized shrub trimmers “shall be notified by the public works director of the specific violation,” and a sheriff or a deputy plainly is not the public works director.
But many municipal ordinances are not explicit about who is supposed to get the civil penalty ball rolling. Take section 18-10 of the Greensboro Code of Ordinances, which prohibits “recreational activity upon any city property abutting the city’s watershed lakes.” The ordinance provides that “[t]he penalty for violation of this section shall be a civil penalty in the amount of [$250] for each violation,” but it does not say who may impose such a penalty. Although the sheriff and deputy sheriffs are not expressly excluded from enforcing this ordinance, I tend to think that they should not. After all, G.S. 160A-175 describes a city’s authority to enforce its ordinances, and sheriffs and deputies aren’t agents of cities. Cf. Hartsell v. City of Asheville, 164 N.C. 193 (“It is for the town to enforce its own ordinances.”). Because the authority that sheriffs and deputies have to enforce the criminal law is not implicated here, there’s no clear role for them in the enforcement of this municipal ordinance.
Other notes. Two further thoughts. First, even when a sheriff or a deputy is authorized to enforce a municipal ordinance, there’s no obligation that he or she do so in any particular case. How to prioritize enforcement efforts generally is a matter of officer discretion.
Second, some municipalities contract with sheriffs’ offices for law enforcement services. Interlocal agreements generally are authorized by G.S. 160A-461. Agreements for law enforcement services often include language authorizing the sheriff’s office to enforce municipal ordinances. That may be sufficient to allow the sheriff and his or her deputies to enforce even ordinances that carry only civil penalties, and is more likely to be sufficient if the agreement specifically includes the authority to enforce ordinances punishable only by civil penalties. Cf. Rose v. Hardie, 98 N.C. 44 (1887) (ruling that the Sheriff was authorized to enforce an ordinance against letting livestock run free in Fayetteville; in this case, the authority came from a local act of the General Assembly rather than a contract; after “the town charter [was] repealed,” the sheriff had been granted “all the power and authority . . . which now belong to or are invested in the town marshal of said town,” and so was empowered to enforce the ordinance). Whether it is a good idea to enlist the sheriff and his or her deputies in the enforcement of such ordinances is beyond the scope of this post, but may depend on the type and severity of the violations the municipality is experiencing, the municipality’s other enforcement options, the sheriff’s other duties and priorities, and the experience and training of the deputies who would be called upon to enforce the ordinances, among other factors.
Interestingly, some states have statutes that focus specifically on interlocal agreements for law enforcement services. These statutes may address ordinance enforcement directly. See, e.g., Mo. Stat. 57-101 (“A county sheriff and his deputies, when authorized by written agreement entered into by the sheriff and a city, town or village within the county and approved by the governing body of the county, shall have the same power and authority to enforce the ordinances of the city, town or village, and in the same manner, as have the police of the city, town or village.”); Wis. Stat. 59-27 (providing in part that a sheriff shall “[e]nforce all city, or village, ordinances in a city, or village, in which the sheriff provides law enforcement services under a contract”). North Carolina does not have a specific statute of this kind, but the general authority of cities and counties to make interlocal agreements likely produces the same result.