Opinion ID: 1292155
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: The Vice In The Statutes' Application

Text: ¶ 14 The vice to be remedied here is not in the delegation to a stranger of powers vested in a unit of government, but in a contractual arrangement between a county entity and a private operator which divests a law-empowered county official of all authority over the contract's subject matter  the operations of the county jail. By the TCCJA contract the county official in charge of the local jail  the sheriff  has been taken completely out of participation in the control of the facility's management as well as divested of oversight over any correctional discipline of the inmates' conduct. ¶ 15 It is the actual transfer of all control over the jail facility by the contract's elimination of the sheriff's oversight authority that offends the symmetry intended by § 46. That section absolutely commands that all county officials who hold the same office in the State have the very same powers and duties. The impact of privatizing the Tulsa County jail creates a disuniformity by which the sheriff is singled out for enjoyment of lesser powers than those possessed by other sheriffs in the State. It is not to be denied that the legislature may abolish the office of the sheriff in all counties. But so long as that office continues to exist its range of duties must be uniform in every county of the State. [27] ¶ 16 The dichotomous division that results from today's decision leaves the sheriff in unprivatized counties fully in command of the local jail but singles out that office in Tulsa County for a different job description. TCCJA's contractual misapplication of uniform law hence creates a local departure which is violative of § 46. That is the essence of the vice to be remedied here.