Posse comitatus

The posse comitatus as an English jurisprudentially defined doctrine dates back to 9th-century England and the campaigns of Alfred the Great, and before in ancient custom and law of locally martialed forces, simultaneous thereafter with the officiation of sheriff nomination to keep the regnant peace (known as "the queen/king's peace").

[3] While the original meaning refers to a group of citizens assembled by the authorities to deal with an emergency (such as suppressing a riot or pursuing felons and outlawry), the term is also used for any force or band, especially with hostile intent, often also figuratively or humorously.

But the Royalist leader in Cornwall, Sir Ralph Hopton, indicted the enemy before the grand jury of the county as disturbers of the peace, and had the posse comitatus called out to expel them.

[13] This power can be used during the execution of a writ of seizure and sale to satisfy a debt; it allows a sheriff to call upon the police while seizing the property.

The posse comitatus power continues to exist in those common-law states that have not expressly repealed it by statute.

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.

[14] But the federal posse comitatus, quite literally, had compelled all of the United States to accept the legitimacy of slavery.

[14][16] In the United States, a federal statute known as the Posse Comitatus Act, enacted in 1878, forbids 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.

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.