Attorney rips order on guns in court

Judge puts limits on where to carry

A Little Rock attorney blasted a circuit court judge Tuesday over a temporary order issued earlier in the day on the ability of attorneys to carry firearms into courthouses in Arkansas.

On Tuesday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Morgan “Chip” Welch issued a temporary order authorizing attorneys to carry firearms into only the “common areas” of the Pulaski County Courthouse in response to a state Supreme Court opinion he titled with the acronym “LOCO” for “Lawyer/Officer of the court Carry Opinion.” The order came in response to — and appears to contradict — the state Supreme Court opinion from last month in which Justice Shawn Womack, writing for the majority, opined that “attorneys, as officers of the court, are authorized by statute to possess handguns in courthouses.”

In that opinion, the Supreme Court reversed Welch’s dismissal of the lawsuit and remanded it back to his court with Little Rock attorneys Robert Steinbuch and Ben Motal still signed on as plaintiffs to the case. Attorney Chris Corbitt was removed from the lawsuit.

The case stems from an October 2022 complaint filed by Corbitt against Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde and Sheriff Eric Higgins after he was refused entry to the Pulaski County Circuit Courthouse while carrying a firearm, which Corbitt maintained violated Act 1087 of 2017, a state law passed to modify who may

legally possess a handgun in an Arkansas courthouse.

The law, as passed and codified under Arkansas Code Annotated §5-73-122(b), says that, “a law enforcement officer, either on-duty or off-duty, officer of the court, bailiff, or other person authorized by the court is permitted to possess a handgun in the courtroom of any court or courthouse in the state.” Corbitt’s argument was that, as officers of the court, lawyers were included in that edict. Although the high court affirmed Corbitt’s removal from the case, it also reversed Welch’s dismissal of the case but did not address the issue of whether lawyers can be armed inside the courtrooms themselves after Steinbuch and Motal declined to pursue that part of the claim.

In Tuesday’s order, Welch said that the case creates, “a new class of unlicensed, heretofore untrained, armed lawyers in courthouses of the state, in apparent conflict with the myriad of legislative enactments promoting carry permits.” The only qualification needed, Welch said, is passage of the Bar exam, “which the Court takes notice is silent on firearm safety or training.”

In the temporary order, which Welch made specific to Pulaski County, “excepting the Supreme Court,” the judge said that all licensed attorneys, “regardless of training or certification,” would be permitted to carry handguns in the common areas “ONLY of the Pulaski County Courthouse.”

Welch, noting that jail facilities located in the courthouse basement and on two of the upper three floors of the courthouse would make it necessary for pretrial and post trial detainees to be escorted throughout the building, said the Supreme Court opinion, “begs the question: Within what proximity of any inmates should armed attorneys be allowed?” He set a hearing for Aug. 1 at 1:30 p.m. on “whether (or what) further Orders should be issued,” and said it is anticipated that it will require more than a single hearing, “to implement the vision of the Supreme Court.”

Welch said in his order that counsel at the hearing on Aug. 1, “should be prepared at the hearing to answer questions concerning the implementation of the LOCO Mandate, maintaining public safety, and provide consistency with the administration of justice,” and included a list of questions he said would be among those to be resolved, including how attorneys would be initially required to identify themselves to court security personnel, “who likely will not know which armed people are lawyers;” how security personnel might distinguish lawyers who have been suspended, disbarred or suffering from mental illness; what role armed attorneys should have in the event of an active shooter situation; what liability issues could potentially arise and who would be responsible; and if attorneys would enjoy qualified immunity.

Before the hearing Aug. 1, Welch wrote, further implementation of the “LOCO Mandate,” would be stayed with the exception of the first floor of the Pulaski County Courthouse, “and to NO OTHER COURT in this jurisdiction pending the hearing.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Steinbuch, — a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — blasted Welch’s opinion and likened the judge’s resistance to the higher court to that of former Gov. Orval Faubus, whose intransigence to court-ordered school segregation triggered a constitutional crisis that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the Cooper v. Aaron case in 1958.

“The Supreme Court order makes it clear that attorneys can carry guns into courthouses,” Steinbuch said, “and the first thing Judge Welch does is say, ‘I’m only going to allow this in one courthouse and on one floor … This is not by accident. He was hostile to the interpretation of the law that ultimately prevailed and he thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court by creating … an acronym for the Supreme Court’s order, LOCO, which of course means crazy in Spanish.”

Steinbuch characterized Welch’s order as little more than a delaying tactic to put off implementation of the law as clarified by the Supreme Court opinion and said the questions Welch proposed about the level of training lawyers may have, what proximity armed attorneys may find themselves in with defendants or how security personnel can distinguish attorneys allowed to be armed from others who are prohibited from having weapons are irrelevant to the matter.

“Lawyers are entitled to carry guns into courthouses for one reason and one reason only,” Steinbuch said. “Because the Legislature said so and the governor signed the bill into law. And now he’s looking to put additional requirements on that? Otherwise, why is he asking all of these absolutely bizarre questions? Should lawyers participate in the apprehension of suspects? What does an armed citizen do in Walmart? Is he expected to participate? The law doesn’t require that and the law is the same inside the courthouse as it is outside the courthouse.”

Pulaski County Attorney Adam Fogleman, who is defending the county, the county judge and the sheriff in the lawsuit, did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.