Category: Legal Issues (page 5 of 5)

The California Court of Appeals recently determined that a butter knife, even when used to try to cut someone’s throat, is not a deadly weapon.

This fascinating case began at a Los Angeles high school when three students attacked another student, simply identified as Deon, on the school’s campus. As two students held Deon down, the main attacker, Brandon, pulled out a knife and tried to cut Deon’s throat. But, when the knife’s handle fell off, the students fled the scene.

The attack was described in more detail in the court documents:

According to Deon, Brandon took the knife and tried to cut Deon’s cheek and throat. Brandon moved his arm up and down, applying a slashing motion on Deon’s cheek. Deon testified that, despite Brandon’s efforts, the knife would not cut: “He [Brandon] was trying to cut, but it wouldn’t cut. So it was just making, like, welts.”

Because the knife did not cause significant damage, the California Court of Appeals ruled that the butter knife was not a deadly weapon. This downgraded the attack to a misdemeanor, overturning a previous ruling that charged the defendant with a felony.

The appeals court ruled that a deadly weapon must be an object that can cause death or great bodily injury. Since the defendant applied full pressure with the knife and tried to inflict significant harm but still could not, the knife was not capable of causing great bodily injury and was therefore not a deadly weapon.

The actual knife used was a little more than three inches long, had a rounded edge and slight serrations.

A school district in Michigan recently announced that it is allowing Sikh students to carry ceremonial daggers to school as a form of religious expression, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press.

Baptized males in the Sikh religion are required to wear the small daggers, known as kirpans, as a religious symbol denoting their commitment to fight evil.

The controversy surrounding the ceremonial dagger first appeared in December when a fourth-grader at a Canton Township elementary school carried a dull 3-to 5-inch dagger to school. After that incident, kirpans were banned at the district, but national Sikh groups wrote letters expressing disapproval.

The school’s decision has generated widespread interest, because it was made with the rational that the knives fall under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as protected religious expression.

However, some are arguing that allowing the kirpans in schools is a double standard, since other students aren’t able to carry knives, and a student who accidentally brought a Swiss army knife to a Virgina high school was recently expelled.

But, the school’s decision might also be a victory for knife enthusiasts, as the district has also changed the definition of what makes a knife a dangerous weapon.

Despite making the changes, the daggers can only be taken to school if they meet specific guidelines: the blade must be dull, it must be sewn into its sheath so it can’t be taken out, it must be no bigger than 2 1/4 inches and it must not be visible.

Maine State Representative Sheryl Briggs is mounting a campaign to legalize switchblade knives for individuals with one arm.

The proposal is similar to a federal law that exempts those with one arm from the prohibition of switch blades of 3 inches or less.  The reasoning behind the push, quite simple: it’s hard to pry open a normal knife with only one arm.

A few weeks ago, we blogged about the efforts of the group Knife Rights to repeal many of the laws regulating knives. A recent column by Greg Bean of the New Jersey publication The Examiner gave a prime example of the confusion surrounding knife laws in many states.

Bean tells the tale of a young man who was arrested at a random DUI checkpoint for possessing a pocket knife.  The man, who declined to be named for the article, wasn’t drinking and had spent the day on a remodeling project.

According to Bean, the man faced a felony charge but eventually plead guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a $800 fine.  Bean said that the man told him that he asked the judge to provide clarification of what law he’d violated, but received none.

Bean tried to find the answer himself, but after asking a number of cops, judges and prosecutors, he failed to get a comprehensive answer.

They confirmed what I suspected, and here’s what they said: Because the state statutes are so vague, law enforcement can do just about whatever it wants, from taking the common-sense approach and letting the poor sod go, to incarceration, to astronomical fines, no matter how arbitrary and capricious their actions appear.

Bean’s editorial isn’t the only one expressing disgust at  poorly-defined knife laws.  Knife advocates across the country are speaking up in greater numbers about what they perceive to be vague and poorly-intentioned state and local knife laws.  Bean feels that the laws make criminals of those who are simply carrying knives for functional reasons.

I don’t want to be a criminal, but I’d like to carry my Swiss Army knife since I use it several times a day, and never know when I’ll have to open an envelope, drive a screw, or cut a trapped family from a flaming vehicle

An article in Saturday’s New York Times chronicled the recent success of knife lobbyists across the country to ease restrictions on possessing different kinds of knives.

At the centerpiece of the story was the decision by Arizona lawmakers to put all knife restrictions under control of the state legislature, who then proceeded to abolish the majority of prohibitions.

The burgeoning knife movement is championed by Knife Rights Inc., an advocacy group based in Arizona, which contends that the right to carry knives is protected by the Second amendment, alongside the right to bear arms.

The group also claims that the prohibitions against certain kinds of knives, such as switch blades and/or machetes, have no basis in the potential harm the knives could cause.

It’s ridiculous to talk about the size of the knife as if that makes a difference. If you carry a machete that’s three feet long, it’s no more dangerous than any knife. You can do just as much damage with an inch-long blade, even a box cutter,” said D’Alton Holder, a veteran knife maker who lives in Wickenberg, Ariz.

In addition to its success in Arizona, the group also aided in the overturning of a New Hampshire Law that banned switchblades.

Many of the current knife bans were passed in the 1950s as a result of movies like “West Side Story and “Rebel Without a Cause,” which featured menacing knife use.