A county sheriff in Oklahoma can be ousted by means other than at an election, but apparently not easily and not quickly.
The subject has arisen because of a controversy swirling in McCurtain County.
The McCurtain Gazette released audio recordings and transcriptions of those conversations in which McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, former County Commissioner Mark Jennings, Sheriff’s Department Capt. Alicia Manning, and suspended County Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix discussed murdering the Gazette’s publisher and his son and reminisced about lynching Black people.
Jennings resigned from office on April 19 and Hendrix was placed on administrative leave by the county’s jail trust on May 3. County residents and Governor Kevin Stitt have called for the resignations of Clardy and the other county officers identified in the recordings, but the demands have fallen on deaf ears.
A recall is not an option because Oklahoma statutes do not provide for recall of public officers such as sheriffs.
At least one Oklahoma sheriff was stripped of his badge after he was indicted by a state grand jury and convicted after a trial.
Roger Lee Price was elected Sheriff of Pawnee County and took office in January 2005. Five years later, then-District Judge Jefferson Sellers – who received his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and earned his law degree from the University of Tulsa – requested a grand jury inquiry into Price’s conduct.
The grand jury met in September 2010 and found that Price knowingly, willfully and unlawfully committed misconduct in office. On Sept. 29, 2010, the grand jury filed an “Accusation for Removal” alleging three separate incidents of misconduct. Price was suspended from office pending trial, in accordance with Oklahoma law.
During a three-day trial in November 2010, the state pursued two of the three alleged acts of misconduct. The first count accused Price of releasing a female prisoner from jail without bond or judicial authorization in September 2006. In the second count, Price was accused of refusing to book or detain a person who was attempting to surrender on an outstanding warrant in July 2007.
A unanimous jury found Price guilty of both alleged incidents of willful neglect of duty. The trial court then entered a final order and judgment on Nov. 10, 2010, removing Price from office immediately, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
Voluntary Resignation or Forcible Removal
Stitt on April 16 issued a statement calling for the resignations of Clardy, Manning, Jennings and Hendrix.
The next day the governor directed the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a probe of “any criminal activity related to disturbing comments made on March 6, 2023,” by Clardy, Jennings, Manning and Hendrix.
In a letter he sent to state Attorney General Gentner Drummond four days later, Stitt wrote, “As I understand it, Sheriff Clardy has, at the least, willfully failed or neglected to diligently and faithfully ‘keep and preserve the peace’ of McCurtain County, which is a duty enjoined upon him … Should you find that there is reasonable cause for such complaint, I urge you to institute proceedings to oust Sheriff Clardy from office” pursuant to a state statute.
Drummond wrote to Stitt on May 5 that “on April 21, 2023, you requested me to investigate complaints of official misconduct against Sheriff Clardy pursuant to the ouster statutes set forth” in Title 51, Section 91. Those statutes, which were enacted in 1917, “contain three potential grounds for ouster,” Drummond related.
That law provides that, “Official misconduct within the meaning of this act is hereby defined to be: )1. Any willful failure or neglect to diligently and faithfully perform any duty enjoined upon such officer by the laws of this state. )2. Intoxication in any public place within the state produced by strong drink voluntarily taken. )3. Committing any act constituting a violation of any penal statute involving moral turpitude.”
In his letter, Drummond informed the governor that he asked the OSBI to expand its investigation “to include wrongdoing that could trigger” application of Title 22, Section 1181, which provides for eight potential grounds for removal from office.
Those eight offenses for which a public officer who is appointed or elected and is not subject to impeachment can be removed from office include:
• Oppression in office.
• Corruption in office.
• Willful maladministration, and
• Habitual or willful neglect of duty.
“I believe it is in the interest of justice to determine if there are grounds to proceed” under the Title 22 removal statute, “which is broader than” the Title 51 ouster statute.
Taxpayers could be liable for lawsuit judgments
Eight lawsuits against the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, the county jail trust and/or Sheriff Kevin Clardy and his deputies have been filed in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court in the past eight years.
Three of those cases alleged county officials were to blame in the deaths of jail inmates. One of those lawsuits, alleging negligence, use of excessive force and “deliberate indifference” in the death of a jail inmate in 2015, was settled out of court for $200,000.
Still another lawsuit, filed last July by a former inmate who claimed he was pepper sprayed while confined in the Idabel jail, was dismissed recently.
Six of the eight lawsuits are still active.
One of those was filed by the widow of Bobby Dale Barrick, 45, who died March 18, 2022, five days after an encounter with McCurtain County deputies and a state game ranger following an incident that occurred at a store in Eagletown.
Barrick’s widow, Barbara Barrick, is seeking more than $2 million from the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Clardy, Deputies Matthew Kasbaum, Quentin Lee and Kevin Storey, and Wildlife Department game ranger Mark Hannah.
If Mrs. Barrick prevails, the multimillion-dollar judgment will be paid from a special ad valorem tax collected on all property in McCurtain County for three years.