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Call Now: 904-383-7448Before commencing to carry out the duties of their office, jailers must give to the sheriff a bond and surety for the sum of $1,000.00, conditioned for the faithful performance of their duties as jailers, and shall take and subscribe before the sheriff of their respective counties, to be filed in and entered into the records of the sheriff's office, the following oath:
"I do swear that I will well and truly do and perform, all and singular, the duties of jailer for the County of ______; and that I will humanely treat prisoners who may be brought to the jail of which I am keeper and not suffer them to escape by any negligence or inattention of mine. So help me God."
(Laws 1811, Cobb's 1851 Digest, pp. 201, 202; Code 1863, § 332; Code 1868, § 393; Code 1873, § 357; Code 1882, § 357; Penal Code 1895, § 1121; Penal Code 1910, § 1150; Code 1933, § 77-102; Ga. L. 1987, p. 342, § 1.)
- Sheriff owes to a prisoner placed in the sheriff's custody a duty to keep the prisoner safely and free from harm, to render the prisoner medical aid when necessary, and to treat the prisoner humanely and refrain from oppressing the prisoner; and if a sheriff is negligent in the sheriff's care and custody of a prisoner, and as a result the prisoner receives injury or meets death, or where a sheriff fails in the performance of the sheriff's duty to the prisoner, and the latter suffers injury or meets death as a result of such failure, the sheriff would, in a proper case, be liable on the sheriff's official bond to the injured prisoner or to the prisoner's dependents. Kendrick v. Adamson, 51 Ga. App. 402, 180 S.E. 647 (1935).
- When a prisoner has been placed in the custody of and accepted by a sheriff through the sheriff's deputy, the jailor of the county, and when the prisoner is drunk and as a result of drunkenness sets fire to himself and is burned to death, the sheriff and the sureties on the sheriff's official bond are not liable to the dependents of the deceased prisoner, upon the ground that the jailor was negligent in incarcerating the prisoner in a cell alone without first searching the prisoner and removing from the prisoner's person any object or article with which the prisoner might inflict injury upon himself or others, such as matches, and on the ground that the jailor did not respond to the drunken cries of the prisoner for help. Kendrick v. Adamson, 51 Ga. App. 402, 180 S.E. 647 (1935).
- Custody of the defendant, pending the defendant's trial under an indictment for criminal offense, is in the sheriff of the county wherein the offense was committed, and the responsibility for the defendant's safe and secure confinement in jail is that of the sheriff. Howington v. Wilson, 213 Ga. 664, 100 S.E.2d 726 (1957).
- Motion for general demurrer by the defendant, a county jailer, was properly denied on the defendant's indictment on a charge of violating the defendant's oath of office for receiving marijuana as payment for delivering a pack of cigarettes to an inmate because it could not be said that defendant had "well and truly" performed the defendant's duties. Murkerson v. State, 264 Ga. App. 701, 592 S.E.2d 184 (2003).
- 63A Am. Jur. 2d, Public Officers and Employees, § 487 et seq.
- 72 C.J.S., Prisons and Rights of Prisoners, § 126.
- Personal liability of policeman, sheriff, or similar peace officer on his bond, for injury suffered as a result of failure to enforce law or arrest lawbreaker, 41 A.L.R.3d 700.
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