Florida judges legally can’t bar state attorneys and their staff from carrying firearms into courtrooms, according to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
In an Oct. 20 letter posted to the attorney general’s website, Uthmeier told Sarasota’s Republican State Attorney, Ed Brodsky, that he and his staff should be allowed to bring their guns into courtrooms — even though the Chief Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit decreed otherwise in a September order.
“The Chief Judge’s Administrative Order clearly conflicts with and attempts to amend Florida law,” Uthmeier wrote in his advisory opinion, insisting that the circuit has “contravened” the law. These opinions are not binding, and while courts have to consider them in litigation, they don’t need to abide by them.
“The Order cannot lawfully prohibit the State Attorney, assistant state attorneys, and their investigators from carrying firearms in the Twelfth Circuit’s courtrooms.”
He argued that although Florida statute empowers judges to limit “any person” from bringing weapons into their courtrooms, state attorneys and their staff don’t count as “any person.”
They count as law enforcement.
“Law enforcement officers—including state attorneys, assistant state attorneys, and investigators—do not fall within the definition of ‘any person,’” he said.
Uthmeier’s opinion tracks with his dogged pro-gun rights approach since Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the chief legal position in February. He declined to defend a decades-old ban on open carry last month when the First District Court of Appeal struck it down as unconstitutional. He has since asked the legislature to clean up state statute to reflect the decision.
Similarly, he’s preemptively refused to defend a Parkland-era law that lowered the gun-buying age if it makes it to the Florida Supreme Court — unlike his predecessors. This approach comes as House Republicans are set to consider (for the fourth year in a row) whether to return the gun-purchasing age to 21. DeSantis, meanwhile, has advocated for a repeal of Florida’s red flag laws, but the state Senate has largely avoided touching gun laws since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.
Why did Uthmeier write this opinion?
The dispute arose after Judge Diana Moreland in September finalized new restrictions on where state attorneys can carry firearms: state attorneys and their staff could carry firearms into court facilities where their offices are, but not in courthouses without their offices or in any courtroom. Moreland oversees cases in Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties.
Brodsky disagreed, and wrote to Uthmeier to ask his legal opinion. Because this isn’t a court case, the attorney general as Florida’s chief legal officer can offer advisory opinions that often carry great weight in future litigation and serve as a guideline for state attorneys.
Uthmeier referenced a 1988 opinion by Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth in a letter to then-State Attorney Janet Reno, a Democrat serving Miami-Dade who went on to serve as U.S. Attorney General. Butterworth believed that assistant state attorneys are law enforcement, and therefore could carry weapons into court in their official capacity.
“The Florida legislature has recognized the importance of the safety of prosecutors by giving them the right to arm themselves in the course of their official duties,” Uthmeier wrote.
“While [statute] contemplates a Chief Judge’s ability to regulate the carrying of firearms in courthouses and courtrooms, the State Attorney, assistant state attorneys, and investigators plainly fall outside that statute’s permissible regulatory sweep.”
–Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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