Texas - Illegal Knife+CHL+Handgun = Jail+Charges+Test Case?

[Charlie_K]

In other words this is a case of false arrest and false imprisonment. Get the civil suit ready since the ADA agreed with you on the matter.

 

[glistam]

In other words this is a case of false arrest and false imprisonment. Get the civil suit ready since the ADA agreed with you on the matter.

Not necessarily. Police have what is called "qualified immunity" from suit when engaging in discretionary duties of detainment and arrest. However, this immunity has limits and is void if the arrest is in violation of "clearly established law." The problem with this case is that it's not clear if the police were simply going with their best judgement with regards to a very poorly-phrased statute, or if they should have known better. That "should have known better" is key to such suits.

Here is a really good example. There is in fact a legal precedent for a civil suit in the face of an improper knife arrest that occurred in Maryland, Sorrell v McGuigan. Sorrell was arrested for a 3 inch long regular folding knife. Now the problem is that under the statutory law, "penknives" do not count as weapons, but never actually defines it in the legislation.

Sergeant McGuigan argues that Maryland law never clearly defines "penknife." As a result, McGuigan says that a reasonable officer interpreting the penknife exception must rely on the common understanding of a penknife as a small pocketknife and that Sorrell’s knife was arguably not a small pocketknife.

McGuigan is wrong. While the concealed weapons statute does not define "penknife," the highest court in Maryland defined it back in 1978.

The term means any knife that folds into it's handle and isn't a button-operated switchblade, even if it's huge. McGuigan was effectively making the law up as it suited him and the plaintiff Sorrell was able to prove that a police officer in Maryland should clearly have known better. Our Texan friend here looks like he will have a harder time proving the cops should have known better since the phrasing of the statute is so darn confusing.

 

[Charlie_K]

And "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is a legally recognized standard of practice.