Recently, Division 1 of the Second District Court of Appeals, in a case entitled People v. Pellecer, ruled that carrying knives in a backpack does not violate Penal Code §12020(a)(4) which is a law that makes the carrying of a concealed knife on your person criminal. That particular statute or law requires that the knife be concealed on an individual’s “person”. As noted by a Eureka criminal defense attorney, that statute should be strictly construed or interpreted.

At trial, the defendant argued that when he was found by the police he was leaning on his backpack. In the court’s instructions to the jury at trial, the court indicated that the statutory language “on his person” would include “a bag or container carried by the person”. The defendant made the argument that if the statute requires knives to be carried on their person, it means exactly that. If knives were carried in some type of a container such as a backpack or suitcase, that situation would not be one that was anticipated by the statute or criminal law.

The Court of Appeal agreed and the decision by the trial court, convicting the defendant, was reversed. The court ruled that former Penal Code §12020(a)(4) provided criminal penalties for someone who was carrying a knife on their person and that a dirk or a dagger carried inside a container such as a backpack or a suitcase does not fall within the language of the statute and, therefore, the defendant was not guilty. This is a decision based on a principle that has been long argued by Eureka criminal defense lawyers. The court is required to look at not only the legislative history of a statute but also its “plain reading”. The legislature could have very easily, when it enacted the statute, added the language “or in a container carried by the individual”.

For more information about California criminal assault issues, click here.

Typically, for someone to be convicted of an assault with a deadly weapon (Penal Code §245), a deadly weapon must be used. A deadly weapon can literally be almost anything if used with sufficient force, i.e., a bat, a steel-toed boot, a high-heeled shoe, a beer bottle, a car, a pencil, a dog, a cigarette lighter, etc. This is the type of case that is typically handled by Lake County criminal defense attorneys.

In the Second District Court of Appeals case entitled In re J.L., (2012), the defendant punched the alleged victim who then fell down onto the sidewalk. The defendant then violently stepped on the victim’s head that was lying against the sidewalk basically making the sidewalk one side of a vice with the defendant’s foot on the other side. The defendant made the argument that he had not actually “used” the sidewalk but rather the sidewalk was simply there.

This Court said that someone who is attacking another can take advantage of an object’s intrinsic qualities in a way that is likely to cause the victim great bodily harm without actually possessing or controlling the object. This can be a slippery slope for the Court. Next, similar logic will possibly lead to the characterization of walls, refrigerators or any other surface against which an alleged victim is punched or hit, to be classified as a deadly weapon. In the opinion of a Lake County criminal lawyer, this Court is taking the concept too far.

For more information about assault issues in California, click here.

In this case, the client purchased a kit from the internet that contained all the parts necessary to construct an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle. The police conducted a search and found the partially assembled rifle. The client was charged and convicted of attempted unlawful assault weapon possession.

On appeal to a higher Court, the client argued that the law, as it is presently constructed, is insufficient to support a conviction unless the rifle was fully assembled and capable of firing in a semi-automatic fashion. The Appellate Court rejected this argument and agreed with the lower Court’s decision holding that the intent of the law as currently constructed is to protect the “health, safety and security of citizens from the danger of assault weapons”. To rule otherwise would, in essence, characterize the law as authorizing the possession of an AK-47 kit. In short, although this position is criticized by a Sonoma County criminal defense attorney, you cannot own the weapon parts nor the assembled weapon.

For more information about California assault issues, click here.

In People v. Aznavoleh, the assault attorney representing defendant appealed the decision claiming that the defendant’s conduct amounted to mere recklessness and not an assault with a deadly weapon. The circumstances included the defendant deliberately running a red light at a busy intersection. The Appellate Court disagreed and held that although a person may not be convicted of an assault with a deadly weapon “without actual knowledge of facts sufficient to establish that his or her act by its nature will probably and directly result in the application of physical force against another” this does not mean that a person must be subjectively aware of the risk that a battery could occur. This opinion is, in the opinion of a leading Santa Rosa criminal assault lawyer, incorrect. The Court further held that as long as the defendant is aware of what he/she is doing and a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would foresee that the act would probably and directly result in an application of physical force to someone else. In this particular case, the defendant was racing with another car and apparently took no steps to stop or avoid the vehicle that was involved in the collision. Based on those facts, the Court held that an objective person would appreciate that a collision with injury would probably occur.

For more information about assault cases, click here.