Illegal search and seizure

[quincy]

The contact is certainly questionable, though we do not know the context and the officer is under no legal obligation to provide it in the field. One would expect that it would be laid out in ay report provided, so I wonder what reason for the contact was indicated? If the contact is good, then I suspect the seizure of the knife will be as he told the officer he had a knife and there is ample case law that permis law enforcement to seize such items during a detention. Then the question becomes whether or not the knife fits the definition of a switchblade.

I suppose we'll know when we are told whether the DA files the charges or not.

Yup. I guess we will have to wait with Lon.ram to discover what happens next.

 

[justalayman]

I forgot the cops stop me because the car I was about to hop in has a dealer paper plate which was not stolen and they even run the Vin no.

Was the paper plate valid?

 

[Mass_Shyster]

The OP mentioned the knife is an assisted opener.
Many many common legal knifes are spring assisted, and are not switchblades or stilettos.

Despite being prefectly legal and not prohibited by law (no switch or button) many police love to charge these inappropriately.

I'm currently defending someone against a charge of carrying a dangerous weapon in Mass - MGL Chapter 269 Section 10(b). The police report refers to it as both Spring Assisted and Spring Loaded. It's a Tac-Force T-428 My motion to dismiss is scheduled for next month. If that doesn't work, we go to trial and show the jury a similar knife with the handles replaced with clear plastic.

Either way, this $15 knife is costing my client plenty. This charge almost got his bail revoked on an open case.

 

[FlyingRon]

The Tac-Force would be legal under California law (provided the spring holds it closed at the beginning of the travel, which I'm sure it must). The tab on the blade to open it is acceptable.

 

[Mass_Shyster]

The Tac-Force would be legal under California law (provided the spring holds it closed at the beginning of the travel, which I'm sure it must). The tab on the blade to open it is acceptable.

I believe it’s legal under Mass law as well. That didn’t stop the police from charging him.

 

[quincy]

I believe it’s legal under Mass law as well. That didn’t stop the police from charging him.

And that, absent other facts, is what appears to have happened to Lon.ram. A legal knife carry resulting in a charge for an illegal knife carry.

Good luck with your motion to dismiss, Stevef.

 

[xylene]

In NY "Gravity Knife" had a specific statutory intent to prohibit a very specific design of knife, yet thousands of mostly black men have been prosecuted and convicted and served time in Rikers or Prison for the crime, while carrying ordinary folding knifes, arguably because of a wholly inadequate public defense system.

 

[quincy]

In NY "Gravity Knife" had a specific statutory intent to prohibit a very specific design of knife, yet thousands of mostly black men have been prosecuted and convicted and served time in Rikers or Prison for the crime, while carrying ordinary folding knifes, arguably because of a wholly inadequate public defense system.

Public defender offices across the country are underfunded and public defenders are often buried in large numbers of cases, each of which could probably use more time devoted to them than is available to give.

Given the funding and time problems, public defenders on the whole are able to provide their indigent clients with good, skilled representation.

 

[CdwJava]

Well, we DO NOT KNOW that the OP was in possession of a legal knife. HE says it was legal and his attorney says it was legal, but the officer and (if he files) the DA may disagree. If I had a nickel for every time a guy holding a switchblade swore to me that his knife was legal ... well, my wife would have a few pulls at the nickel slots.

 

[quincy]

Right. We have not seen the knife.

 

[xylene]

The prohibitions on swithcblades and automatic and gravity knives make about as much sense today as moral panic over zoot suits, and their prohibition come form the same hyper-reactionary and racist place.

Knife is for the poor and the brown and guns are for the rich and landed white. It's just that simple.

 

[quincy]

Not true at all in Michigan (and I suspect not true in other states). Detroit is a good example.

 

[Zigner]

The prohibitions on swithcblades and automatic and gravity knives make about as much sense today as moral panic over zoot suits, and their prohibition come form the same hyper-reactionary and racist place.

I have heard dozens of stories about those folks using those sharp zoot suits to stab and cut people.

 

[xylene]

Detroit is a good example.

Of what criminal mismanagement?

 

[quincy]

Of what criminal mismanagement?

Of a lot of things ... but guns are the weapon of choice among the "poor and the brown" and the poor and the white. Hard to do driveby knifing.