Hey, you’re spot on with your example. I got arrested for a pocket knife which the officer managed to forcefully fling open and the charge was possession of a weapon in the 4th degree (“gravity knife”), a class A misdemeanor. I got a public defender, who got me a plea deal of 30 hours community service and not getting arrested for a year to get the case dismissed without a conviction. They also tried to claim I drove drunk, but alas I blew a 0.0000 on their breathalyzer, so that was a fail.
NYPD officers got caught on a massage board explaining in detail how to claim any knife at all could be called a gravity knife to get better arrest records for promotions, that’s why I used that example.
Hey, you’re spot on with your example. I got arrested for a pocket knife which the officer managed to forcefully fling open and the charge was possession of a weapon in the 4th degree (“gravity knife”), a class A misdemeanor. I got a public defender, who got me a plea deal of 30 hours community service and not getting arrested for a year to get the case dismissed without a conviction. They also tried to claim I drove drunk, but alas I blew a 0.0000 on their breathalyzer, so that was a fail.
NYPD officers got caught on a massage board explaining in detail how to claim any knife at all could be called a gravity knife to get better arrest records for promotions, that’s why I used that example.
Side note, a judge finally ruled that “gravity knives” are legal in NY in 2017, so that particular “gotcha” is not a thing anymore.