The
posse comitatus power continues to exist in those common-law
states that have not expressly repealed it by
statute. As an example, it is codified in
Georgia under OCGA 17-4-24: In some states, especially in the
western United States, sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies have called their civilian auxiliary groups "posses". The
Lattimer Massacre of 1897 illustrated the danger of such groups and thus ended their use in situations of
civil unrest.
Posse comitatus in the US became not an instrument of royal prerogative but an institution of local self-governance. The posse functioned through, rather than upon, the local popular will. From 1850 to 1878, the
United States federal government had expanded its power over individuals. This was done to safeguard national property rights for slaveholders, emancipate millions of enslaved African Americans, and enforce the doctrine of formal equality. The rise of the federal state, like the marketplace before it, had created contradictory but congruous forces of liberation and compulsion upon individuals. In the United States, a federal statute known as the
Posse Comitatus Act, enacted in 1878, limits the use of the
US Army (and, as amended, the
US Air Force,
Navy,
Marine Corps, and
Space Force), as a
posse comitatus or for law enforcement purposes without the approval of Congress. The act originally did not mention branches of the military other than the Army (and subsequently the Air Force after its establishment), leading the
US Department of the Navy and the
US Secretary of Defense to prescribe equivalent regulations prohibiting the use of other branches for domestic law enforcement. In 2021, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 amended the Act to formally apply the same restrictions to the domestic use of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force. The limitation does not apply to the
National Guard of the United States when activated by a
state's governor and operating under
Title 32 of the US Code, such as deployments by state governors in response to
Hurricane Katrina.
Notable posses In 1856, in response to the
dispatch of militia by the governor of
Washington Territory,
Isaac Stevens, to arrest
Francis A. Chenoweth, the chief justice of the territory's supreme court, who was holding court in the Pierce County Courthouse, the sheriff of
Pierce County deputized 50 to 60 civilians for the defense of the court. Negotiations ultimately resolved the standoff; the militia withdrew. In 1897 the sheriff of
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, deputized 100 civilians to supplement 50 deputy sheriffs in confronting 400 striking mine workers at the Lattimer Mines. The posse fired at the strikers, killing 19 workers in what became known as the Lattimer massacre. In 1994, violent bank robbers fled from
Mineral County, Colorado, into remote
Hinsdale County, Colorado, which at the time had two law enforcement officers for its 500 residents. The county sheriff summoned the county's power, directing more than 100 deputized civilians and 200 out-of-town police officers in house-to-house searches for the fugitives. The robbers committed suicide as the posse closed in on their location. The court noted: In the
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, David Kopel observed that almost all US states provide statutory authority for sheriffs, or other local officials, to summon the county's power. In many cases, civil and criminal penalties are prescribed for members of the public who shirk posse duty when summoned;
South Carolina provides that "any person refusing to assist as one of the posse ... shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction shall be fined not less than thirty nor more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for thirty days" while in
New Hampshire a fine of "not more than $20" has been set. Title 42, section 1989, of the
United States Code extends the authority to summon the power of the county to
United States magistrate judges when necessary to enforce their orders: == See also ==