Opinion ID: 1702151
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Common Pocketknife Exception as Defined by L.B.

Text: As the United States Supreme Court recognized, Florida law has exempted common pocketknives from the statutory definition of a weapon since 1901, in language unchanged since the exception became law. See Bunkley II, 123 S.Ct. at 2021; see also Bunkley I, 833 So.2d at 743. The statutory language in effect when Bunkley's conviction became final in 1989 was identical to the statutory language at the time of L.B.'s conviction in 1995. [29] Under the construction of this language adopted in L.B., Bunkley was improperly convicted of the crime of armed burglary, which incorporated the statutory definition of a weapon, for his possession of a knife that was a common pocketknife as a matter of law. The due process concern in this case is identical to Fiore. In a decision in another case issued after Fiore's conviction became final, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court clarified that the statute under which Fiore was prosecuted and convicted did not prohibit Fiore's conduct. That decision was not new law but rather a clarification of what the law had always been. Thus, Fiore did not present an issue of retroactivity. See 531 U.S. at 228, 121 S.Ct. 712. However, because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's clarification stated the law at the time of Fiore's conviction, the United States Supreme Court held that Fiore's conviction violated due process. See id. When the issue of the definition of a common pocketknife first came before this Court in 1997 in L.B., we were not called upon to reconsider any previous decision of this Court. Rather, we were reviewing a decision in which the Second District had declared the common pocketknife exception to the statutory definition of weapon void for vagueness. Despite the majority's statement in Bunkley I to the contrary, see 833 So.2d at 745, in quashing the Second District decision we did not rely on any evolutionary process in judicial constructions of the statutory common pocketknife exception. Rather, to save the term common pocketknife from unconstitutional vagueness, we relied not only on the 1951 Attorney General's definition of common pocketknife, as the majority points out, but also on a 1986 dictionary definition from Webster's Third New International Dictionary. See L.B., 700 So.2d at 372-73; see also Francis v. State, 808 So.2d 110, 138 (Fla.2001) (stating in parenthetical cite to L.B. that this Court relied on dictionary definition in responding to vagueness challenge). [30] In L.B., we clarified a statute that had recognized, without any change, the common pocketknife exception for decades. Our holding was not a change in the law but rather an explanation of what the law had always been. L.B. stands for the proposition that a folding knife with a blade of less than four inches which is carried in a folded position is a common pocketknife as a matter of law within the meaning of section 790.001(13). Our holding in L.B. is consistent with the intent of the Legislature in exempting common pocketknives from the definition of weapon, as recognized by the Third District Court of Appeal as early as 1974: Obviously the legislature, by excepting common pocket knives from the category of weapons, the carrying of which would be a crime, did so in order that the carrying of a common pocket knife by a citizen should not constitute a crime, in view of the general custom of people to carry such knives for convenience and useful purposes unrelated to any criminal intent or activity. State v. Nixon, 295 So.2d 121, 122 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974); see also L.B. v, State, 681 So.2d 1179, 1180 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996).