O.C.G.A.
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall take the same oaths as their principals take and the oaths shall be filed and entered on the minutes of the same office with the same endorsement thereon; but this Code section shall not apply to any deputy who may be employed in particular cases only. A deputy sheriff may take his oaths before the sheriff and the oaths may be filed in and entered in the records of the sheriff’s office.
History
(Orig. Code 1863, § 140; Code 1868, § 135; Code 1873, § 145; Code 1882, § 145; Civil Code 1895, § 240; Civil Code 1910, § 275; Code 1933, § 89-308; Ga. L. 1980, p. 527, § 1.)
Annotations
JUDICIAL DECISIONS Cited in Nave v. State, 171 Ga. App. 165, 318 S.E.2d 753 (1984). OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Emergency squad members to be qualified as deputy sheriffs. - A police intelligence unit should provide that members of emergency squads be qualified as de jure deputy sheriffs in all counties in which they intend to operate. 1969 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 69-473. Procedure for qualifying emergency deputies. - When a number of
emergency deputies are to be appointed, they may all be qualified at a joint meeting by a superior court judge if all counties involved are within that circuit; if, however, other counties are to be served, proper oath must be taken within each such county. 1971 Op. Att’y Gen. No. U71-84.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in
7
cases (
2 in the last 5 years), 1984–2026 · leading case:
Middleton v. State, 890 S.E.2d 713 (Ga. 2023).
Middleton v. State, 890 S.E.2d 713 (Ga. 2023).
· cites it 12× “See OCGA § 45-3-7 (“Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall take the same oaths as their principals take .”
State v. Giangregorio, 352 S.E.2d 193 (Ga. Ct. App. 1986).
· cites it 4× “DeKalb County Deputy Sheriff Toles would have been acting de jure, if he had been sworn as a special deputy in Clayton County, OCGA § 45-3-7, and fulfilled the other legal requirements such as filling the oath, OCGA § 45-3-8, and executing a bond, OCGA § 15-16-23.”
Nave v. State, 318 S.E.2d 753 (Ga. Ct. App. 1984).
· cites it 2× “) Under OCGA § 45-3-7, Nave was charged with the same oath as the district attorney, and he in fact swore to that oath when he took the position of assistant district attorney.”
Jowers v. State, 484 S.E.2d 803 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997).
· cites it 2× “Pursuant to OCGA § 45-3-7 this same oath of office also is prescribed by law to be taken by a deputy sheriff, such oath being the same as prescribed by law for the sheriff who is a deputy sheriff’s principal within the meaning of this statute.”
Pierson v. The State., 824 S.E.2d 657 (Ga. Ct. App. 2019).
· cites it 8× “" 33 (a) OCGA § 45-3-7, entitled "Oaths of deputies," provides as follows: Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall take the same oaths as their principals take and the oaths shall be filed and entered on the minutes of the same office with the same endorsement thereon; but…”
Brett v. Jefferson Cnty., Ga., 925 F. Supp. 786 (S.D. Ga. 1996).
· cites it 2× “In this case, Plaintiffs’ term of office as deputies expired with the term of their principal, Sheriff Compton.”
Clayton Watkins v. State (Ga. Ct. App. 2026).
· cites it 6× “At the applicable time, OCGA § 45-3-7 provided, “Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall take the same oaths as their principals take and the oaths shall be filed and entered on the minutes of the same office with the same endorsement thereon.”
— 45-3-7(b) — 1 case
Clayton Watkins v. State (Ga. Ct. App. 2026).
“At the applicable time, OCGA § 45-3-7 provided, “Before proceeding to act, all deputies shall take the same oaths as their principals take and the oaths shall be filed and entered on the minutes of the same office with the same endorsement thereon.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.