Opinion ID: 2745632
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: ¶1 Wade John Miles was convicted under Utah Code section 76-10-503 (2011)1 for having a pocketknife among his personal 1 This statute has been substantially amended since Mr. Miles’s conviction. See 2014 Utah Laws 2255–58(amending, among other provisions, UTAH CODE §§ 76-10-501, -503). Our analysis, however, is governed by the 2011 version of the statute because the 2011 version was in place at the time of Mr. Miles’s alleged criminal conduct. See State v. Clark, 2011 UT 23, ¶ 14, 251 P.3d 829 (noting that a party’s “primary rights and duties are dictated by the law in effect at the time of . . . the conduct giving rise to a criminal charge”). We (continued...) SALT LAKE CITY v. MILES Opinion of the Court belongings, which he carried with him in a shopping cart. Section 7610-503 of the Utah Code criminalizes, among other things, possession of a “dangerous weapon” by a restricted person. The term “dangerous weapon,” in turn, is defined in subsection 76-10501(6). Mr. Miles appealed his conviction, arguing that his pocketknife did not qualify as a dangerous weapon under that statutory definition. He first argued that the statute permits consideration only of a knife’s actual use, not its intended use. He then argued that because Salt Lake City failed to proffer evidence that the knife was actually used, the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to establish that his knife was a “dangerous weapon.” The court of appeals rejected Mr. Miles’s interpretation of the statute and held that an object’s intended use may always be considered in determining whether the object is a “dangerous weapon” as defined by statute. Salt Lake City v. Miles, 2013 UT App 77, ¶ 13, 299 P.3d 1163. Under this reading, the court held that the evidence presented at trial, including, importantly, Mr. Miles’s verbal threats to kill someone with a knife, was sufficient to establish that the knife in Mr. Miles’s shopping cart was a dangerous weapon. Id. ¶ 19. ¶2 We granted certiorari to determine two issues: first, whether the court of appeals correctly interpreted the statutory definition of “dangerous weapon” in subsection 76-10-501(6); and second, whether the jury had sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude that Mr. Miles’s knife qualified as a “dangerous weapon” under that statute. We disagree with the court of appeals that the statute permits consideration of an item’s intended use if the item is “a knife, or another item . . . not commonly known as a dangerous weapon.” UTAH CODE § 76-10-501(6)(b). For those objects, we hold that the statute permits consideration only of how the object was actually used, as outlined by the factors in subsection 76-10-501(6)(b). Based upon this interpretation of the statute, we hold that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to establish that the pocketknife lying in Mr. Miles’s shopping cart was a dangerous weapon as defined by statute.