JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — One thing that's abundantly clear in the draft legal opinion released Thursday by the city's Office of General Counsel is that Sheriff Mike Williams' move out of Duval County vacated the position of sheriff. It said the city charter is "clear and unambiguous" that the Jacksonville Sheriff must live in Jacksonville and "failure to do so will result in a vacancy in office."
"[B]y virtue of the Sheriff removing his residency from Duval County during his term of office," it reads, "the office of the Jacksonville Sheriff is hereby deemed to be vacant."
The draft opinion was released Thursday despite Jacksonville City Council President Sam Newby's decision to rescind his request for a binding legal opinion about the vacancy. Newby said the opinion was no longer needed because Williams announced he was retiring shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday .
If the draft is clear the seat has been empty since Williams' move to Nassau County in March 2021, it is less clear in its conclusion: that the Sheriff's actions between the time he left and today were legally valid.
"It was effective the moment he removed his residency from Duval County," says Jacksonville constitutional lawyer Bryan Gowdy. "So there's a lot of what I would call 'collateral consequences' of that, which would be that the sheriff was not entitled to compensation for the year that he had removed himself from Duval County. There could also be all types of challenges to any any orders issued by the sheriff under his authority as sheriff, on the grounds that he wasn't really the sheriff. So it just opens a can of worms."
The draft opinion attempts to resolve this problem declaring, albeit without explanation, that the seat would officially be deemed “vacant” Thursday at 2 p.m. June 2 -- the same time Newby asked for the binding legal opinion. It continues,
“Any actions taken and compensation received by the Sheriff between such time as he removed his residence outside of Duval County and the effective date and time of this vacancy determination are valid actions and compensations .. by virtue of his defacto status in office.”
"The conclusion that he was somehow a de facto sheriff for the last year, and therefore any compensation he received, any orders he issued, anything he did as the de facto Sheriff for the last year is 'valid' -- I think that conclusion is challengeable," says Gowdy.
Newby said his decision to cancel the legal opinion had nothing to do with holding the sheriff accountable for vacating the office a year ago. “That’s not the council’s job. That will be the legal department’s job to talk about that.”
Thursday afternoon, Councilmember Brenda Priestly Jackson sent a letter to city attorneys making her own request for a binding legal opinion in the case.
General Counsel Jason Teal declined comment about the draft document, but said he expected it will be the focus of "significant discussion" Monday at a special meeting of the City Counsel.
READ the full opinion here