Arrested for Running for Sheriff

This piece first appeared at LewRockwell.com.

On Monday, March 27, 2023, Anh Colton was arrested in her driveway in Santa Clara County, California.

The reason.

She ran for Sheriff.

Yes. A year earlier, in the June 7, 2022, California primary election, she ran for Sheriff.

You see, Anh has no law enforcement experience according to the District Attorney’s Office.

And there is a law in California which states that if you do not have either experience as an officer or a certificate of qualification, then you can not run for sheriff (California Government Code Section 24004.3).

This law came about after, Michael Hennessey, a private citizen from outside of law enforcement, ran for San Francisco County Sheriff successfully in the 1970s wanting to reform law enforcement. The sheriffs’ union did not like that. It would spell disaster for the profession if a bunch of reformers ended up as sheriffs just because they won election.

I can see where they were coming from. Doctors unions put a limit on who can become a doctor. It is not the most qualified or the most talented who can become a doctor, but it is the one who jumps through the hoops. Lawyers unions put a limit on who can become a lawyer. It is not the brightest, the most ethical, or the most upright who can become a lawyer, but it is the one who jumps through the hoops. These groups both use the force of government to do so, to protect their practice from more qualified outsiders who won’t jump through their chosen hoops — through state medical licensure laws and state bar laws. So law enforcement wanted to do the same.

But did they have any right to do that?

They were, after all, public servants. And their boss is the highest elected law enforcement official of a given county. What business did they have telling the public that they could not choose who they wanted for that role?

The California State Legislature gave them that right through duly passed legislation.

However, this law has not been rigorously tested on the courts. It will almost certainly not pass constitutional muster. It abrogates the rights of a citizen to run for office, an office which does not require special expertise, and which would likely benefit from outside perspectives.

But I suspect that was not the issue for Anh.

The issue was probably the unrepentant way that Anh handled the matter.

Anh is a Christian. A mom. An activist. She is someone who refuses to let California be taken by the devil.

Therein lies the true problem.

And Santa Clara County, where Anh was thrown in jail Monday, and released at 10:30pm that night, is the belly of the beast. Just south of San Francisco, Santa Clara County is the massively liberal place, with incredibly wealthy enclaves, that people are talking about when they say the words “Silicon Valley.” This is the once vast farmland that has become a hub of technological innovation and entrenched interest.

Anh was fighting that fight against the system there, of all places. Contrary to popular belief, it is a place where the tech moguls like their bought-and-paid for system exactly the way it is, as long as it is fully in their control. Anh ran to the right of everyone else running, almost uncomfortably pushing the debate to places no one would take it, saying the things no one would say — immigration, deportation of criminals, the Constitution, and most of all: God. Everyone else with their practiced vanilla answers looked liked a phony next to the common sense sincerity of this mother and housewife, who herself immigrated to the US in her youth, and who loves her adopted country. She is the patriot of patriots.

Based on the final outcome of the primary, Anh’s presence in the race, did not likely affect the outcome of the race, by the way. Shifting her votes to any one candidate would not have changed the results.

Her first place opponent, who advanced along with the second place opponent to the November election, was quoted in June as publicly opposing the idea of punishing Anh for this behavior, while also sharing the following:

“She brought a perspective that probably a lot of people are feeling that somebody outside of law enforcement should do this role...That being said, it’s a very complex role and I think her lack of experience showed at the forums, and at the end of the day experience prevailed.”

Anh, while filing her candidacy paperwork, checked a box on a form that said she was qualified to run for that office under the law. Anh, according to the DA, was not qualified to run for office. According to Anh, she was as qualified as it comes.

This could all have been cleared up easily. Two weeks before the election, the District Attorney wanted Anh to turn tail and run. That was it. Kowtow, submit, and all would be forgotten.

Anh would not.

When asked by the District Attorney to withdraw herself from the election two weeks before the election, after the ballots had already been printed, she refused.

But Anh did not stop there.

Anh took it a step further. In the face of the District Attorney, she doubled down. She said God certified her to run for Sheriff, and she was running for Sheriff, and that nothing would stop her from doing so.

So she sits today at risk of being convicted of felony perjury, with a possible four years in prison.

She was aggressively arrested on Monday, March 27, for perjury, pulled out of her car, thrown in county lockup, on a warrant, with a $25,000 bail.

For lying under oath.

A million people probably committed perjury today in the United States. This very day — in courtrooms, on government forms, on private forms. A million people this very day will lie under oath, just like any other day. Will any of them get arrested? No. Perjury is a selectively prosecuted crime. Seldom is there a conviction.

District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen is selectively prosecuting a Christian California mom for standing up for her values.

That’s the fact of the matter.

The rest of the DA’s case stinks.

The rest of the DA’s behavior stinks.

I don’t know about whether someone should check a box on a form that says they are qualified under the law. That doesn’t seem right. But far more wrong is the prosecution of someone selectively for doing so. The law she violated has no teeth. There are no criminal penalties to it. The California State Legislature specifically made this a law without any ability to be criminally enforced. Anh lives a life beyond reproach. The only thing anyone might say about her is that she’s “too saintly,” if such a thing exists.

And that is who District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen in this climate chose to throw in the county slammer, a jail really filled with the dregs of society.

He could not get her on anything else. So he will drag her through the mud on perjury.

That is lawfare, the politicization of the legal system. And as far as people like Jeffrey Rosen are concerned, once they are done with Anh, they are coming for you next.

Thursday, April 27, 2023, at 1:30 pm, Anh Colton is scheduled to appear in court in Santa Clara County, California at the curiously named Hall of Justice in the City of San Jose.

-Allan Stevo