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”.

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