Hon. A. J. Hartel Opinion No. M-973
County Attorney
P. 0. Box 43I Re: Whether a district
Liberty, Texas 77575 court bailiff mud
be deputized as a
Dear Mr. Hartel: deputy. sheriff.
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 juries under~the provisions of Article 19.36, Code of
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
state have special statutoryprovisions that govern the appoint-
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
-4x3-
Hon. A. J. Hartel, page 2. (M-973)
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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