POSSE COMITATUS ACT - signed on June 18, 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act – in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 – is to limit the powers of the federal government in using its military personnel to act as domestic law enforcement personnel.:

Oregon residents need to invoke Posse Comitatus and arrest the FBI agent who murdered Lavoy Finicum.  BLM, FBI and all government parties are in violation of the Law of Posse Comitatus.

 

Posse Comitatus is the citizens’ defense against predatory government attacking the citizenry.

 

Jade Helm in action!!!!

Posse Comitatus

[Latin, Power of the county.] Referred at Common Law to all males over the age of fifteen on whom a sheriff could call forassistance in preventing any type of civil disorder.

The notion of a posse comitatus has its roots in ancient English Law, growing out of a citizen’s traditional duty to raise a“hue and cry” whenever a serious crime occurred in a village, thus rousing the fellow villagers to assist the sheriff inpursuing the culprit. By the seventeenth century, trained militia bands were expected to perform the duty of assisting thesheriff in such tasks, but all males age fifteen and older still had the duty to serve on the posse comitatus.

In the United States, the posse comitatus was an important institution on the western frontier, where it became known asthe posse. At various times vigilante committees, often acting without legal standing, organized posses to capturewrongdoers. Such posses sharply warned first-time cattle rustlers, for instance, and usually hanged or shot second-timeoffenders. In 1876 a four-hundred-man posse killed one member of the infamous Jesse James gang and captured twoothers.

In 1878 the use of a posse comitatus was limited by the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act, passed inresponse to the use of federal troops to enforce reconstruction policies in the southern states, prohibited the use of the U.S.Army to enforce laws unless the Constitution or an act of Congress explicitly authorized such use. This act was amendedfive times in the 1980s, largely to allow for the use of military resources to combat trafficking in illicit narcotics.

Though rarely used, the posse comitatus continues to be a modern legal institution. In June 1977, for example, the Aspen,Colorado, sheriff called out the posse comitatus—ordinary citizens with their own weapons—to hunt for escaped massmurderer Theodore (“Ted”) Bundy. Many states have modern posse comitatus statutes; one typical example is theKentucky statute enacted in 1962 that gives any sheriff the power to “command and take with him the power of the countyor a part thereof, to aid him in the execution of the duties of his office” (Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 70.060 [Baldwin 1996]).

“Posse Comitatus” is also the name taken by a right-wing, antitax extremist group founded in 1969 by Henry L. Beach, aretired dry cleaner and one-time member of the Silver Shirts, a Nazi-inspired organization that was established in the UnitedStates after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. The group operated on the belief that the true intent of the founders ofthe United States was to establish a Christian republic where the individual was sovereign. Members of the group wereunited by the belief that the federal government was illegitimate, being operated by Jewish interests through the Internal Revenue Service, the federal courts, and the federal reserve. The Posse Comitatus received widespread media attention in1983 when a leader of the group, Gordon Kahl, was involved in a violent standoff with North Dakota law enforcementofficers. Convicted for failure to pay taxes and then for violating the terms of his Probation, Kahl shot and killed threeofficers and wounded three others before being shot and killed himself.

Further readings

Corcoran, James. 1990. Bitter Harvest. New York: Viking.

Hasday, Jill Elaine. 1996. “Civil War as Paradigm: Reestablishing the Rule of Law at the End of the Cold War.” KansasJournal of Law and Public Policy 5.

Malcolm, Joyce Lee. 1994. To Keep and Bear Arms. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.

West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

posse comitatus

(pahs-see coh-mitt-tah-tus) n. from Latin for “possible force,” the power of the sheriff to call upon any able-bodied adult men(and presumably women) in the county to assist him in apprehending a criminal. The assembled group is called a posse forshort.

Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.

posse comitatus

‘the power of the county’. The sheriff was able to call together able-bodied men to keep thepeace. The institution transplanted to the USA, thence into ordinary parlance: ‘round up a posse’.

Collins Dictionary of Law © W.J. Stewart, 2006
POSSE COMITATUS. These Latin words signify the power of the county.
     2. The sheriff has authority by the common law, while acting under the authority of the writ of the United States,commonwealth or people, as the case may be, and for the purpose of preserving the public peace, to call to his aid theposse comitatus.
     3. But with respect to writs which issue, in the first instance, to arrest in civil suits, the sheriff is not bound to take theposse comitatus to assist him in the execution of them: though he may, if he pleases, on forcible resistance to theexecution of the process. 2 Inst. 193; 3 Inst. 161.
     4. Having the authority to call in the assistance of all, it seems to follow, that he may equally require that of anyindividual; but to this general rule there are some exceptions; persons of infirm health, or who want understanding, minorsunder the age of fifteen years, women, and perhaps some others, it seems, cannot be required to assist the sheriff, and aretherefore not considered as a part of the power of the county. Vin. Ab. Sheriff, B.
     5. A refusal on the part of an individual lawfully called upon to assist the officer in putting down a riot is indictable. 1Carr. & Marsh. 314. In this case will be found the form of an indictment for this offence.
     6. Although the sheriff is acting without authority, yet it would seem that any person who obeys his command, unlessaware of that fact, will be protected.
     7. Whether an individual not enjoined by the sheriff to lend his aid, would be protected in his interference, seemsquestionable. In a case where the defendant assisted sheriff’s officers in executing a writ of replevin without theirsolicitation, the court held him justified in so doing. 2 Mod. 244. Vide Bac. Ab. Sheriff, N; Hamm. N. P. 63; 5 Whart. R. 437,440.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.