I'm told our S.O. has a property room full of firearms, mostly rifles, that are not attached to cases. Allegedly, these are seized weapons that cannot be identified or have no record that would allow us to dispose of them in the usual manner.

What steps do you take to dispose of firearms? What would you do with a room full of evidence that is not linked to any case or cause? How would you clean up the mess?

First, if they haven't already - run the ser. #'s and see if any have turned up reported/entered as stolen or missing since logged in. Might be able to get something back to a rightful owner.

When our Sheriff has an overloaded evidence room with items, such as firearms, which no longer need to be kept, and an owner cannot be identified, he runs a proposed order by both the District and County Attorney, who sign off on it, then presents it to the appropriate judge to order disposal.

Yeah, we just disposed of a bunch like Rick said. I signed motions to destroy and the judge approved them.

Do any of you prosecutors have handguns provided to you by your local sheriff???Is this a local South Tx custom? Are we exempt from getting a license to carry? Sorry its off the subject but just need to know if this is part of the job.

Prosecutors are not exempt from having to get a license to carry, nor are judges.

We are not issued a firearm.

Section 46.15 is the non-applicability section that lays out to whom 46.03 and .04 do not apply. A prosecutor is not included in that list.

But judges are exempt from the "Places Weapons Prohibited" section if they have a concealed handgun license. (46.15(a)(4))

Although if you look at 46.03(a)(3) it seems to suggest that written authorization of the court or written regulations regarding the goverment office would authorize the carrying of a firearm by the prosecutors. So, to and from work and at work as long as you're in the building with written authorization.

If that written authorization extended to other buildings and was from the proper authority, conceivably the prosecutor could travel from one government building to another as long as there weren't significant deviations in the journey. For instance, if there if a prosecutor had to travel to another part of the county for municipal court or justice court, a written authorization for each building would seem to suffice. (see the case law on 'travel' for a better definition.)

But, none of the above would authorize the regular carrying of a firearm. Concealed using the license to carry then written authorization for specific places would grant what you seem to be suggesting, but all other locations that are restricted to license holders would remain restricted without proper written authorization.

[This message was edited by Philip D Ray on 05-19-04 at .]