Short answers, pulled from the story.
Sheriff derives from the Old English term "shire reeve" (scirgerefa), a royal official responsible for managing a shire or county on behalf of the king. The word is a contraction of those two Old English terms and survived the Norman Conquest of England.
In the United States, a sheriff is most often an elected county official serving as the chief civilian law enforcement officer. Duties typically include policing unincorporated areas, administering county jails, providing court security, and serving warrants and court papers. The scope of the office varies significantly across states and counties.
Yes. In Scotland, sheriffs are judicial officers who sit in sheriff courts and form part of the judiciary. The most senior are sheriffs principal, who hold administrative and judicial authority across six sheriffdoms. A sheriff must have been qualified as an advocate or solicitor for at least ten years before appointment.
The sheriff office in Iceland is the oldest secular position of government still operating in the country. The post was mandated by the Old Covenant, an agreement between the Icelandic Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Norway ratified between 1262 and 1264. There are 24 sheriff jurisdictions in Iceland today.
Only Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and Chennai (formerly Madras) have had sheriffs in India, reflecting their status as the three former British presidencies. The post in Chennai was abolished in 1998. In Mumbai and Kolkata, the sheriff's role is now ceremonial, with the post ranked second to the mayor in the city's protocol list.
Fifteen towns and cities in England and Wales retain the office of sheriff. They include Berwick-upon-Tweed, Canterbury, Gloucester, Nottingham, Oxford, and York, among others. The National Association of City and Town Sheriffs of England and Wales was founded in 1985 by the then Sheriff of Gloucester, Andrew Gravells.