In In re B.M., the Supreme Court today holds that a 17-year-old’s use of a butter knife towards her sister’s blanket-covered legs did not amount to an assault with a deadly weapon. The court’s opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye Justice Goodwin Liu concludes that, “for an object to qualify as a deadly weapon based on how it was used, the defendant must have used the object in a manner not only capable of producing but also likely to produce death or great bodily injury.”
All seven justices sign the court’s opinion, but Justice Ming Chin — joined by Justice Carol Corrigan — writes a separate concurrence. He hopes to leave open the question of what “likely” to produce great bodily injury means. Justice Chin says the court’s opinion should not be read to define “likely” as “probable.”
The court resolves an intra-district conflict in the Court of Appeal case law. It reverses the Second District, Division Six, which had disagreed with a 2011 decision by the Second District, Division One.
