                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

DEPUTIES OF DECEASED SHERIFFS (§ 15.2-1617)

If any sheriff dies during his term of office, his chief deputy shall have the
same right to remove any deputy from office and to appoint another, that the
sheriff himself, if alive, would have had; or any such deputy may be removed by
order of the circuit court for the county or city of which his principal was
sheriff; but unless so removed, the deputies of such sheriff, in office at the
time of his death, shall continue in office until the qualification of any new
sheriff, and execute the office in the name of the deceased, in like manner as
if the sheriff had continued alive until such qualification. Any default or
misfeasance in office of any such deputy shall be as much a breach of the
condition of the bond of the sheriff, and of the bond of such deputy, as if the
sheriff had continued alive and in the exercise of his office.

HISTORY: Code 1950, § 15-510; 1962, c. 623, § 15.1-75; 1971, Ex. Sess., c.
155; 1997, c. 587.