Request By:
Mr. William C. Shouse
Executive Director
Jefferson County Attorney
1112 Kentucky Home Life Building
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; James H. Barr, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your recent letter in which you request an opinion as to whether a deadly weapon ordered forfeited pursuant to KRS 527.060 can be released by the court to individual police officers, presumably for their own use.
The pertinent statutes state as follows:
KRS 527.060 "Upon the conviction of any person for the violation of any law of this commonwealth in which a deadly weapon was used, displayed or unlawfully possessed by such person the court shall order the weapon forfeited to the state and sold, destroyed or otherwise disposed of in accordance with KRS 500.090."
KRS 500.090 (1)(d) "Property which is forfeited under any section of this code may, upon order of the trial court, be retained for official use in the following manner. * * * Property which has been seized by an agency of county, city or urban-county government may be retained for official use by the government whose agency seized the property or for official state use. * * *"
We have underlined what we believe to be the dispositive language in the statute. The legislature stated that the property may be retained for official use by the government. An individual police officer although a representative of the government cannot be construed to be "the government". If the legislature had intended to include individuals as recipients of property it must be presumed that it would have said so. Thus, a firearm if seized by the county police may be released by the court to the county. The county in turn could provide that the weapons be turned over to the police department for official use. Therefore, conceivably an individual police officer could end up possessing a forfeited firearm for official use in the line of duty but the firearm would still have to be listed as county property.
In answer to your inquiry then, a court may not lawfully order a forfeited firearm released to an individual police officer for his own use but may order it released to the local or state government.