Opinion ID: 2096056
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: dangerous knife

Text: It appears from the record that on June 6, 1969 two security guards at a department store in Newark observed defendants in the act of shoplifting and then leaving the store. The guards immediately flagged down three detectives in an unmarked police car who together with the guards pursued defendants and within a short time overtook them. After a command to stop defendants fled in opposite directions but were promptly followed and apprehended. At police headquarters a search revealed that each defendant had a knife in his pocket. The knives were admitted in evidence and submitted to the jury for inspection, but they were not produced before this Court and they are not fully described in the record. At oral argument, however, defense counsel stated that the knives were of the pocket type with a single folding blade approximately 3 1/2 inches long which would not lock when opened. Each defendant urges that his conviction for possession of a dangerous knife in violation of N.J.S.A. 2A:151-41(c) should be reversed because his knife had a folding, non-locking blade and as a matter of law was not such a forbidden instrument, that the trial judge committed plain error in his charge by failing to give the jury an adequate standard for determining what is a dangerous knife, and that he also erred in excluding testimony of defendants that they carried the knives as tools necessary for their employment. The pertinent provisions of N.J.S.A. 2A:151-41 relating to carrying concealed weapons without a permit or identification card reads: Except as hereinafter provided, any person who carries, holds or possesses in any automobile, carriage, motor cycle or other vehicle, or on or about his clothes or person, or otherwise in his possession, or in his possession or under his control in any public place or public area: