Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith needs to be made to understand that he doesn’t get to choose what laws he enforces, and what laws he doesn’t want to enforce.
And just to be clear on that point – I’m not this: the Code of Virginia dictates this.
Plain English, this is from Virginia Code §15.2-1609. Sheriff.
The sheriff shall exercise all the powers conferred and perform all the duties imposed upon sheriffs by general law. He shall enforce the law or see that it is enforced in the locality from which he is elected.
There’s no wiggle room there – nothing in the code that says:
The sheriff gets to decide to enforce laws based on his singular interpretation of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Virginia.
No.
It says:
He shall enforce the law.
This is an issue in the here and now because Smith, in a rambling public statement posted to the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page on Tuesday night, declared outright that he “will not enforce gun control laws that interfere with the constitutional rights given to all citizens.”
ICYMI
“The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office is committed to upholding the Constitution in its entirety, regardless of state law,” Smith wrote in the missive.
Neither the Constitution of Virginia nor the Code of Virginia allows Smith to do this.
He has one job:
He shall enforce the law.
Two things can happen here, now that our sheriff has declared that he no longer intends to do his job, as spelled out by the Constitution of Virginia and the Code of Virginia.
- He can resign, effective immediately, stating as the reason for his resignation his conscientious objection to being asked to enforce laws that he feels do not align with the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
- A citizens’ group can petition for his removal under the state code, citing “neglect of a clear, ministerial duty of the office,” which would require the signatures of a total number of voters comprising at least 10 percent of the total votes cast in the last sheriff’s election – Smith was unopposed in his 2023 re-election, in which a total of 20,342 votes were cast; 10 percent of that would be 2,034, a very doable number. The petition process is a trigger for a circuit court hearing, with a judge ultimately deciding Smith’s fate.
I don’t see Smith resigning, and no, I’m not going out on a limb there.
Him going public with this pronouncement about not wanting to enforce new gun laws is entirely about his 2027 re-election campaign.
It’s political posturing.
Nor do I see a circuit court judge removing Smith from office, even in the face of a successful petition drive.
That effort would have value, though, in being symbolic, in terms of making the sheriff answer to his decision to not act in accord with his duties and responsibilities under the state code; and also in giving people on all sides of the political ledger the opportunity to say, whether we agree with a particular state law or not, it’s a law.
There’d also be the real life consequence for Smith to have to endure not only a public campaign, but having to lawyer up – through a circuit court case and attempts at appeal.
Having to endure months of a public petition drive and then a court hearing might clip Smith’s wings in terms of his thinking about neglecting to perform the duties of his office in the future.
If he, indeed, has a future, as the elected sheriff of Augusta County.
There is that 2027 election that he is trying to influence by telling people who want to run afoul of the new gun laws that went into effect on July 1, don’t worry, not going to enforce those, break the law at will.
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Chris Graham
