Case Information
*1 Hon. A. J. Hartel Opinion No. M-973 County Attorney Re: Whether a district
P. 0. Box 43I court bailiff Liberty, Texas 77575 mud
be deputized as a deputy. sheriff. Dear Mr. Hartel:
You have asked the opinion of this office as to whether a district court bailiff must be deputized as a deputy sheriff.
Provision for the furnishing of district court bailiffs is covered generally bg Article 36.24, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1965, which reads as follows:
“The sheriff of the dounty shall fur- nish the court with a bailiff during the trial of any case to attend the wants of the jury and to act under the direction of the court. If the per- son furnished by the sheriff is to be called as a witness in the case he may not serve as bailiff.”
While the foregolng ‘statute places the duty on the sherlff’to furnish bailiffs and while there is no restriction on the sheriff as to one of his deputies being the bailiff, there is equally no requirement imposed that a bailiff be a deputy sheriff.
District courts.may also appoint bailiffs to attend grand under~the provisions of Article 19.36, Code of juries Criminal Procedure, 1965. Again, this Article imposes no re- quirement that a bailiff so appointed be a deputy sheriff.
Additionally, many of the district courts of this provisions that govern the appoint- state have special statutory ment of bailiffs intheir courts. ‘See Article 2292a, et seq., Vernon’s Civil Statutes and new enactments passed by the last legislature setting up bailiffs for particular courts, i.e. Acts 62nd Legislature, R.S., 1971, Chapters 112 (page 879) and
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Hon. A. J. Hartel, page 2. 351 (page 1325). No requirement that a bailiff be a deputy sheriff is found in any of these special statutes.
Since we find no statute which requires a'district court bailiff to~be a deputy sher;ff, our opinion is that a district court batliff is not required to be a deputy sheriff.
SUMMARY
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The bailiff of a district court need not be a deputy sheriff.
General of Texas Prepared by Lonny F. Zwiener
Assistant Attorney General
APPROVED:
OPINION COMMITTEE
Kerns Taylor, Chairman
W. E. Allen, Co-Chairman
John Banks
Austin Bray
Glenn Brown
Howard Fender
SAM MCDANIEL
Staff Legal Assistant
ALFRED WALKER
Executive Assistant
NOI. WHITE
First Assistant
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