Published: December 20, 2007 10:35 pm      

Unneeded — 12/21/07

Eliminating office of constable better idea than training them

State Sen. Dan Seum, R-Fairdale, has prefiled a bill that would provide law enforcement training to constables and deputy constables.

Greenup County Judge-Executive Bobby Carpenter thinks a better idea would be to eliminate the constitutional office of constable.

“We don’t need constables,” Carpenter says. “The constable office should have been done away with a long time ago.”

Carpenter is right. While constables provide a worthwhile service in some rural counties by serving court papers and assisting the sheriff’s department with other law enforcement duties, constables in other counties do little or nothing — and that’s just the way the people who elected them want it.

Since the role of the constable varies greatly from county to county, it should be up to individual counties what level of training the constables receive. Seum’s bill assumes all constables in the state perform the same type of duties and should receive the same training, but that’s just not the case.

We can understand Seum’s concern. Constables are recognized as law enforcement officers by the Kentucky Constitution and, as a result, they have the right to perform the duties of a police officer. It is dangerous to have untrained constables “playing cop” by carrying weapons, stopping vehicles for traffic and other violations and duplicating the duties of sheriff’s deputies. By enacting the bill providing a minimum of training for constables, Seum is hoping to establish minimum standards for the office.

To date, Seum has received little support for his bill. The Kentucky Association of Counties opposes it because it fears the training could become an unfunded mandate for counties. It also recognizes that the role of constables varies greatly throughout the state.

The Kentucky Sheriff’s Association opposes Seum’s bill because it believes it works against efforts to make sheriff’s departments more professional, said Tim Sturgill, general counsel for KACo.

Greenup County Fiscal Court recently directed Judge-Executive Carpenter to send a letter to KACo opposing Seum’s bill.

Eliminating the office of constable would require voter approval of a constitutional amendment. At this point, support for such an amendment is minimal. As long as the office of constable exists, the status quo should not change. Counties that use constables in serving court papers and in doing other law enforcement duties should have the option of providing them with training, but don’t force constable training on counties where it is neither needed nor wanted.