Court Opinion

ID: 9761122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:32:01.688287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:20.221278
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the opinion of the majority of the Court with the exception of the dicta included therein regarding “asportation”. Under the law of this State, “asportation” is not a required element of the offense of unlawfully carrying a weapon and momentary possession is not a statutory defense to prosecution under V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 46.02.
The current penal code provides that “[a] person commits an offense if he intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries on or about his person a handgun, illegal knife, or club.” Section 46.02, supra. Article 483 of the old penal code, the precursor section, punished “[a]ny person who shall carry on or about his person, saddle.. .saddlebags,. . .portfolio or purse any pistol, dirk, dagger, etc_” Other than adding culpable mental states to the current version in 1974, the Legislature has continuously retained this offense, substantially unchanged, since 1879. A particular form of possession — on or about the person — is prohibited. “Carrying”, as such, has always been of consequence in that there are long recognized case law defenses to unlawful “carrying,” now codified by the Legislature, to include members of the armed forces and national guard on official duty; peace officers, prison guards, and security guards on duty or going to and from; travelers; a person on his own premises or premises under his control; and individuals engaged in lawful hunting, fishing, or other sporting activity. See, Y.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 46.03, the practice commentary, and cases cited therein.
The plain language of the statute, however, has never required asportation, as asserted by the majority. It requires not that a weapon “be carried,” but that a weapon be “carried on or about the person” to come with the ambit of its posses-sory prohibition. Section 46.02, supra. This distinction between the word and the phrase is cruciak Moreover, a close reading of many early cases indicates that unexcepted or indefensible possession on or about the person, not asportation, is the determining factor of conviction. See, e.g. Pyka v. State, 80 Tex.Cr.R. 644, 192 S.W. 1066 (1917); Schuh v. State, 58 Tex.Cr.R. 165, 124 S.W. 908, 909 (1910); Sanderson v. State, 23 Tex.App. 520, 5 S.W. 138 (1887); see also, Linvel v. State, 629 S.W.2d 94, 96 (Tex.App. — Dallas, 1981), and *935cases cited therein; Trimble v. State, 132 Tex.Cr.R. 236, 104 S.W.2d 31, 34 (1937) (“when the condition that sanctions the carrying of a deadly weapon ceases, the right ceases”).
Our recent cases make it crystal clear that absent a defense a weapon possessed on or about the person is synonymous with a weapon carried on or about the person. In Tijerina v. State, 578 S.W.2d 415, 416 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), we upheld against a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence a conviction for unlawfully carrying a weapon where the defendant was found lying asleep in a parked car with a gun in his pocket. Likewise, in Hazel v. State, 534 S.W.2d 698, 700 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), the conviction was upheld where a gun was found on the floor of a parked car in which the defendant was sitting. Neither of these cases contain any suggestion that the weapons were moved.
Therefore, I concur in the opinion of the Court.
CAMPBELL, J., joins in this concurring opinion.