A Michigan sheriff who shared a stage with armed vigilantes at a May 18 protest event, one of whom was arrested by the FBI for plotting to kidnap and possibly kill the governors of Michigan and Virginia, told a radio station on Thursday, October 8, 2020, that he had “no regrets” about associating with the man and made the incredible suggestion that they had a right to “arrest” the governor:
“Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan if it’s a felony, make a felony arrest,” Leaf said. “I think it’s MCL 764.4, 764.5 somewhere on there [MCL 764.16] and it doesn’t say if you are an elected office that you’re exempt from that arrest. I have to look at it from that angle and I’m hoping that’s more what it is …,” Leaf added.
Read story here. Leaf has also claimed the governor’s Covid-19 lockdown orders were illegal “arrests.” Read that story here. Although the Michigan Supreme Court overturned some of Gov. Whitmer’s health orders, that doesn’t mean she committed a crime by issuing them. The dispute over her authority to issue the orders was a civil matter.
Michigan, like other states, does have a law, MCL 764.16, which authorizes citizens’ arrests in certain circumstances:
764.16 Arrest by private person; situations.
Sec. 16.
This allows, for example, a homeowner to detain a burglar, or store personnel to detain a shoplifter, until police arrive. But it does not authorize the type of “sovereign citizen” arrest the men were plotting, or Sheriff Leaf was talking about, in which private citizens seize public officials and put them on “trial” before rump citizen tribunals with no legal authority for alleged constitutional violations. The plotters planned to take Gov. Whitmer to Wisconsin for such a “trial.” Such actions amount to violent overthrow of the legal government, as well as criminal assaults against the persons of the public officials.
“Sovereign citizens” are anti-government extremists who believe the government has no authority over them and they are exempt from laws. For example, they often drive without license plates and driver’s licenses, and have a history of putting illegal liens on property owned by public officials they have grievances against (this is a felony in Washington). Several sovereign citizens have killed police officers during traffic stops.
“Constitutionalists,” who hold similar beliefs, often argue that sheriffs are the highest legal authority in the land. A handful of sheriffs around the country are associated with the “Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association,” which Wikipedia describes as
a political organization of local police officials in the United States who believe that federal and state government authorities are subordinate to local government authority. Members of the far-right, self-described “constitutional sheriffs” movement believe that sheriffs are the highest governmental authority and that they have the power and duty to defy or disregard laws they deem unconstitutional. The movement … promotes such efforts. The CSPOA claims a membership of 400. The movement has some ideological similarities with, the Patriot movement (militia movement) and the sovereign citizen movement, and some members of those movements also espouse “constitutional sheriff” ideology. The “constitutional sheriff” or “county supremacy” movement itself arose from the Posse Comitatus, a racist and anti-Semitic group of the 1970s and 1980s that also defined the county sheriff as the highest “legitimate” authority in the country, and was characterized by paramilitary figures and the promotion of conspiracy theories. The ideological basis of the sheriffs’ movement is based on various incorrect historical and legal claims.
(Quoted from here.) Sheriff Leaf is a nutcase. Whitmer, as governor, has statutory authority to remove sheriffs from office for specified acts of misconduct, but his crazy personal views don’t entitle her to remove him.
Photo: Sheriff Leaf, right, and next to him (with hands in pockets) William Null, one of the men arrested by the FBI for plotting to kidnap the governors of Michigan and Virginia.
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