The Elected Sheriff: A Pillar of American Federalism—or a Relic of Unchecked Power?
Why the Nancy Guthrie Case Is Controlled by the Sheriff
The investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has drawn fierce criticism. From the handling of evidence to limited press briefings to reported friction with the FBI, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has faced mounting scrutiny over the conduct of a case the entire country is watching. The current controversy is not Nanos’s first brush with federal investigators or public criticism—readers interested in that history can find it in the addendum below. But this op-ed isn’t here to settle those disputes. It’s here to answer the question millions of Americans are asking: Why does this sheriff seem to answer to nobody? Why can’t the FBI take over? Why can’t the governor step in? Why can’t the president of the United States do anything about it?
The short answer: because that’s exactly how the system was designed.
Police Chiefs vs. County Sheriffs: Two Very Different Jobs
Americans are generally familiar with city police departments and their chiefs. A police chief is appointed—usually by the mayor—and can be removed by the same authority. The chief’s jurisdiction ends at the city limits. A county sheriff is a different animal entirely. Sheriffs are elected by the voters of their county, typically for four-year terms, in 46 out of 50 states. Only Hawaii and Rhode Island appoint sheriffs statewide; Alaska has no county system, and Connecticut abolished elected sheriffs in 2000. Everywhere else—from rural Montana to urban California—the sheriff is chosen by the people, and the people are the only ones who can remove him, short of impeachment or criminal conviction.
This distinction matters enormously. A mayor can fire a police chief on Monday morning. Nobody can fire a sheriff. Not the county board, which controls the budget but cannot dictate operations, investigations, or evidence handling. Not the governor. Not the president. The sheriff serves until the next election, until voters mount a recall, until he’s convicted of a crime, or—in some states like Arizona—until a rarely used formal removal process through the courts is initiated. In practice, almost none of these mechanisms are ever invoked. The election is the check.
The County Is His Domain
The sheriff’s jurisdiction is also broader than most people realize. City police serve the city. The sheriff serves the entire county—every city within it, every unincorporated area, every square mile. In a state like Arizona, that’s no small thing. Pima County alone covers over 9,000 square miles, an area larger than some states. State constitutions and statutes—like Arizona’s A.R.S. §11-441—grant sheriffs sweeping authority: preserving the peace, operating jails, serving court processes, commanding posses, and acting as the senior law enforcement officer in the county. The sheriff doesn’t just patrol the gaps between cities. He is, by law, the top cop.
Where the Feds Fit—and Where They Don’t
So what about federal law enforcement? The FBI doesn’t have automatic override authority over a local sheriff. In kidnapping cases, the Bureau brings enormous resources—forensic expertise, tip processing, digital capabilities—but primary jurisdiction remains local unless clear federal crimes or interstate elements are established. Federal agencies can investigate and bring federal charges if jurisdiction exists, but they cannot order a county sheriff’s office to hand over operational control of a local investigation. The FBI cooperates with the sheriff because that’s how the system works. They can offer; they cannot command. If a sheriff decides to route evidence to a private lab instead of Quantico, or limits press briefings, or controls the flow of information, federal agents have no legal mechanism to simply take over.
And what about U.S. Marshals—the lawmen who, in the popular imagination, ride in to impose order when local authority fails? The Marshals Service is the oldest federal law enforcement agency, established in 1789, and it still exists. But its modern role is narrowly federal: hunting fugitives with federal warrants, transporting federal prisoners, protecting federal judges and courthouses, and running the Witness Security Program. A U.S. Marshal has no more authority to take over a local kidnapping investigation than the FBI does. In the territorial days of the Old West, federal marshals were often the only law around—but once territories became states and counties elected their own sheriffs, the marshal’s authority receded to federal matters. That transition is itself part of the federalism story: local authority displacing federal control, by design.
This isn’t a loophole. It’s the architecture of American federalism.
How We Got Here
The office of sheriff traces to medieval England’s “shire-reeve,” a royal agent responsible for taxes and order. In colonial America, the colonists kept the office but made one critical change: they made it elected. This reflected deep distrust of centralized authority—the same impulse that produced the Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment’s reservation of undelegated powers to states and the people. The Founders left policing to states and localities. The Constitution doesn’t mention sheriffs at all. State constitutions enshrined them as elected officers precisely to prevent distant powers—whether a king, a governor, or a federal agency—from controlling local law enforcement.
The principle is straightforward: the people of a county choose their sheriff, and the people of that county hold him accountable. No one else. This was meant as a safeguard against tyranny—a guarantee that law enforcement would serve the community, not a bureaucracy.
Arizona and the “Constitutional Sheriff”
Arizona amplifies these dynamics. The state has long been ground zero for the “constitutional sheriffs” movement, founded by former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, who argued that sheriffs are the highest law in their counties and can nullify federal or state mandates they deem unconstitutional. Courts have rejected these supremacy claims—Printz v. United States (1997) affirmed limits on federal authority over local officials but did not crown sheriffs as supreme. Still, the ideology persists across the West, rooted in a frontier tradition of self-reliance and suspicion of faraway government.
Minneapolis: Another Example in the News
The Guthrie case isn’t the only place this system is making headlines. Immigration enforcement is another arena where the sheriff’s independence matters. When the Trump administration escalated ICE operations in cities like Minneapolis, much of the public pressure landed on Governor Walz and Mayor Frey. But sheriffs who run county jails often hold the real power: they decide whether to honor ICE detainer requests, whether to grant agents access to facilities, and how their deputies interact with federal enforcement—because Washington cannot simply order local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration policy. Some sheriffs cooperated fully. Others refused. Each made that call on his own authority, and no one could override it.
The parallel is striking. In Arizona, the public is frustrated that no one can compel the sheriff to change his approach to a kidnapping investigation. In the immigration context, the federal government is frustrated that no one can compel sheriffs to cooperate. Sheriff Nanos himself has publicly stated that his department will not enforce federal immigration law under the Trump administration’s crackdown, making him a figure in both stories simultaneously—criticized for his independence in the Guthrie case while exercising that same independence on immigration. The elected sheriff’s independence doesn’t care who’s unhappy about it.
Not Above the Law—But Close
None of this means a sheriff is above the law. He can be prosecuted for crimes, recalled by voters, or in some states removed through formal legal proceedings. But these mechanisms are vanishingly rare—most voters would struggle to name a single sheriff recall or court-ordered removal in American history. In practice, the only reliable check is the next election. And most Americans barely pay attention to sheriff races, routinely skipping past that line on the ballot—until a crisis hits and they discover they handed enormous power to someone they didn’t think much about choosing.
That’s the system playing out in the Guthrie case. Nanos has acknowledged early missteps. Critics point to the premature release of the crime scene, the evidence-routing dispute with the FBI, and weeks without routine press briefings. No one can intervene—not because higher authorities are indifferent, but because no higher authority has that power. Pima County voters reelected Nanos in November 2024 by a margin of just 481 votes after a recount, out of nearly half a million ballots cast. That razor-thin mandate gives him unchallenged authority until 2028. The only other option is a recall, if voters choose to pursue one.
The elected sheriff is a distinctly American institution: a local guardian with extraordinary independence, answerable only to the people who put him in office. It was designed to protect communities from overreach. Whether it also sometimes protects a sheriff from accountability is the question this case forces us to confront. Justice often depends not just on evidence, but on who controls the keys to the investigation.
Addendum: Sheriff Nanos and the Record of Controversy
The friction between Sheriff Nanos and federal authorities in the Guthrie case is not an isolated episode. His tenure has been marked by a pattern of controversy that, taken together, illustrates exactly how much latitude the elected sheriff system provides—and how few mechanisms exist to check it.
2015–2016: The FBI Investigates His Own Department. Shortly after Nanos took over as sheriff following Clarence Dupnik’s retirement, the FBI opened an investigation into the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for misuse of civil asset forfeiture funds. His chief deputy, Chris Radtke, was indicted on seven federal felony charges—conspiracy to commit money laundering and theft of federal funds—over roughly $500,000 in misused seized assets. Radtke’s niece had been operating cafés rent-free inside sheriff’s headquarters and the county jail, with the department spending over $20,000 on kitchen equipment for the operation. Nanos himself signed nearly $220,000 in transfer requests to the fund at the center of the probe, according to Pima County Attorney’s Office documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star. He was not indicted. His response: “Perhaps mistakes were made. I’m simply a cop, not a politician.” His chief of staff, Brad Gagnepain—whom U.S. Attorney David Backman described at Radtke’s sentencing as likely “more culpable than Mr. Radtke”—died by suicide in June 2016, while the FBI investigation was still active. Nanos lost the election that November.
2020: The Comeback. Nanos ran again and won, defeating the Republican who had beaten him four years earlier.
2022: A Deputy’s Sexual Assault. A female deputy was sexually assaulted by a supervisor within the department. The Arizona Attorney General’s office reviewed Nanos’s handling of the matter and flagged four policy violations. The Pima County Board of Supervisors formally voted to demand Nanos clarify the status of the internal investigation to the public. More than two years later, the case remained unresolved.
2024: Silencing the Opposition. Weeks before the November election, Nanos placed his opponent—Lieutenant Heather Lappin, a Pima County Jail officer—on administrative leave, ordering her not to discuss the reason. He took the same action against Sergeant Aaron Cross, head of the Pima County Deputies Organization, who had publicly campaigned against Nanos with a sign reading “Deputies Don’t Want Nanos.” Cross filed a federal lawsuit alleging Nanos violated his First Amendment rights, and Nanos faced a criminal election interference investigation stemming from the incidents. Nanos won the election by 481 votes after a recount.
2026: The Guthrie Case. Early in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, when pressed by reporters on contradictions in his public statements, Nanos offered a remark that may be the most revealing thing any elected sheriff has ever said about the office: “I’m not used to everyone hanging onto my every word and then holding me accountable for what I say.”
He was telling the truth. Under the American system of elected sheriffs, he’s not used to it—because almost no one ever does.