44 Pa.C.S. Chapter 71

44 Pa.C.S. Chapter 71 is the principal statutory chapter governing the office of constable in Pennsylvania. It assembled the modern statutory grants — bond, training, insurance, fees for judicial duties, and removal — into one place when it was enacted as part of Act 44 of 2009 (and amended thereafter). It does not displace the common law office of constable; it supplements it.

The chapter is organized into four subchapters:

• Subchapter A — General Provisions (§§ 7101–7106): definitions, election, term, qualifications, vacancy, oath, bond.
• Subchapter B — Education and Training (§§ 7141–7148): the certification, basic-training, firearms-training, continuing-education, and insurance requirements administered by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Constables may not perform judicial duties without certification under this subchapter.
• Subchapter C — Compensation (§§ 7158–7163): the statutory fee schedule for judicial duties — service of process, transport of prisoners for the courts, and similar court-directed work. The schedule does not cover, constrain, or reimburse constable activity outside the judicial scope (training, public-safety response, election duty, locally contracted services).
• Subchapter D — Removal and Suspension (§§ 7171–7175): grounds and procedure for removal of a constable.

Key sections

§ 7142. Insurance. Each constable shall carry professional liability insurance covering all judicial duties; minimum amounts are set by the General Assembly and have not kept pace with risk or legal-defense cost.

§ 7146. Powers and duties. Constables retain the powers and duties of constables existing at common law as well as those subsequently granted by statute. Their authority extends throughout the Commonwealth.

§ 7158 & § 7161. Fees for judicial duties. Statutory schedule of fees a constable may collect for service of process, prisoner transport for the courts, and related judicial work. The schedule is exhaustive only as to judicial duties.

§ 7172. Grounds for removal. A constable may be removed only for cause enumerated in statute — not by judicial supervision over peace-officer functions (see In re Act 147 of 1990, 528 Pa. 460 (1991)).

The chapter is too long to reproduce in full here. Each section is hyperlinked from the Pennsylvania Legislature's online repository.