There will apparently be some sort of legal-style trial on whether to remove San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus that will drag on for months, but there’s some question on whether witnesses will be anonymous for fear of her retaliation.

San Mateo County voters overwhelmingly approved a measure last month allowing their county Board of Supervisors to remove Sheriff Christina Corpus, in the wake of a blistering 400-page report claiming she’d used racial and homophobic slurs, and gave a six-figure department job to her alleged romantic partner. Some follow-up reporting in the Palo Alto Daily post noted that report also claimed that the alleged romantic partner, former chief of staff Victor Aenlle, gave her “$1,200 Louboutin boots and $11,000 diamond earrings from Tiffany’s.” (Corpus and Aenlle strongly deny all of this.)

Now that they have voter permission to begin proceedings to possibly remove Corpus from office, the supervisors find themselves in uncharted waters. The process for removing a sheriff does not exist. So the Bay Area News Group reports that the supes will move to create a set of rules for removal hearings at their Tuesday meeting this week. They may or may not approve that process Tuesday, but once they do, we should expect a three-and-a-half month set of hearings that would sort of resemble a court trial, with witnesses being called to the stand and such.

It’s still not determined whether these hearings would be public or private.

But the Palo Alto Post has some interesting reporting on how the supervisors are also trying to protect witnesses against Corpus from any retaliation. They note that a draft of the rules states that “Use of these proceedings, including the discovery process, for the purpose of harassment, undue delay, or for any other improper purpose will not be permitted, and may result in discovery sanctions/remedies being imposed by the hearing officer.”

It is also undetermined who that presiding “hearing officer” would be, but likely some sort of retired outside judge kind of figure who is unaffiliated with the board of supervisors.

But Corpus has been accused of retaliation in the past, namely, having one of her own deputies arrested on felony grand theft charges over alleged time card fraud (the DA tossed those charges, finding them frivolous). Per the Palo Alto Daily Post, Corpus also allegedly fired an assistant sheriff for participating in that probe into her conduct, though the County Manager kept that person on the payroll in hopes of avoiding a wrongful termination suit.

Corpus can lawyer up in this process, and already has. Her attorneys argue that calling this a “sheriff removal process” indicates a fix is already in against her. They also argue with the validity of the probe that turbo-charged this whole scandal, saying it is overly reliant on anonymous sources.

Would those anonymous sources be called to take the stand against Corpus in these removal consideration proceedings? They might have to, and maybe even in public view. These are the matters the supervisors are considering.  

Again, whatever process is expected to stretch for three-and-a-half months, so perhaps until mid-August. At least four of the five sitting supervisors would have to vote for her removal for Corpus to be ousted.

Related: San Mateo County Sheriff Could Face Criminal Prosecution After She Finally Leaves Office [SFist]

Image: Christina Corpus for San Mateo County Sheriff via Facebook