People v. Aledamat

The Court of Appeal vacated defendant's convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, and the one-year enhancement for personal use of a deadly weapon applied to the criminal threats sentence. In this case, defendant thrust the exposed blade of a box-cutter toward a man while threatening to kill him. The court held, and the parties agree, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that it could find the box cutter to be an "inherently deadly" weapon. The court explained that the trial court's instruction defining a "dangerous weapon" to include an "inherently dangerous" object entailed the presentation of a legally (rather than factually) invalid theory. Furthermore, instructional error was prejudicial. View "People v. Aledamat" on Justia Law