Judge Finds No Probable Cause to Search 17-Year-Old Carrying Pistol

On February 5, 2025, an officer responded to a “suspicious person with a weapon” call near a Jack-in-the-Box located on the 5900 block of Gulf Freeway. The video does not say what department the officer was with. The address is in downtown Houston, so the officer is probably from the Houston Police Department. The officer noticed a young man and started questioning him. The young man stated he had been inside the Jack-in-the-Box watching his brothers sell “waters” outside. A man, with a knife in hand, had rushed at his brothers. The young man said he had pulled out a pistol, then moved between his brothers and the man and told his brothers to run.

The officer searched the young man and found a loaded Glock 19. The young man said he had purchased the pistol from a friend for $150. The young man told the officer he was 17 years old. The officer arrested the 17-year-old for criminal possession of a handgun.

This is the information brought to the court in the initial hearing before Judge David Fleisher, an elected Harris County Criminal Court Judge. Houston, Texas, occupies much of Harris County. Judge Fleisher has gained a reputation across the nation for including a hearing on probable cause with the initial court appearance.

Judge Fleisher’s response is interesting. The judge says, “He [the young man] is going to the defense of others.”

At this point, a lawyer in the back of the courtroom stands up and rushes to defend the young man. Judge Fleisher and the lawyer tend to talk over each other, but the lawyer lays out several documents. The documents are a memo from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), saying possession under the age of 21 is not a crime, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling the limitation of carry to people under 21 is unconstitutional, the United States District Court, Northern District holding the prohibition on carrying under the age of 21 is unconstitutional, and a motion to quash the indictment.  Judge Fleisher laughs at the level of preparation and rules there was no probable cause to search. Judge Fleisher says he was going to rule that no probable cause existed in any case.

The lawyer may have been stretching the law. The DPS memo limits the exemption from the law to 18-20-year-old people. The youth, in this case, was 17 years old.

This case shows the sea change with respect to the Second Amendment in the seventeen years since the Heller decision and particularly the 32 months since the Bruen decision. Heller clarified the Second Amendment as a fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. Bruen reinforced the Heller decision and clarified the right to bear arms is a right to carry arms routinely in case of confrontation, including outside the home.

When this correspondent received initial law enforcement training in the 1970’s, an instructor said: don’t worry about searching someone for weapons.  The instructor claimed they had never had a case, where they found a weapon, where the judge had dismissed the case for lack of probable cause.

Times have changed for the better. If the young man had been 18, carrying a Glock would not have been a crime, as the founders intended when they wrote the Second Amendment.

Given the circumstances, the Glock will not be returned. This correspondent’s first impression, given the price of $150 cited, was the Glock was probably stolen. Many people do not bother to report stolen guns. If the Glock had been on the official list of stolen firearms, the young man might have been charged with possession of stolen property.

Judge Fleisher has heard another case involving a 17-year-old and an illegal possession charge. Because there was evidence of the pistol being fired, the other 17-year-old was treated much differently. In that case, the officer did not make an illegal search. The pistol was seen in plain sight inside a car.

Those who wish for the population to be disarmed claim more guns equal more crime. There is no conclusive evidence of this. Most of the evidence indicates more guns equate to no difference or a drop in violent crime, with a slight increase in property crime.

For those interested, here is a link where Judge David Fleisher explains his mission on an ABC news interview.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.