Opinion ID: 1235179
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the trial court erred in permitting the jury to consider townsend's hands deadly weapons.

Text: Townsend next contends that his hands could not be considered deadly weapons. The Information charged Townsend with aggravated battery committed through the use of a deadly weapon in the form of a Ford Pick-up, and/or [the] defendant's hands.... The trial court instructed the jury as to the charges contained in the Information, and indicated that Townsend could only be convicted of aggravated battery if he committed a battery through the use of a deadly weapon or instrument. The Court then provided the jury with the following definition of a deadly weapon: YOU ARE INSTRUCTED THAT a deadly weapon is one likely to produce death or great bodily injury. If it appears that the instrumentality is capable of being used in a deadly or a dangerous manner, and it may be fairly inferred from the evidence that it's possessor intended on a particular occasion to use it as a weapon should the circumstances require, it's character as a dangerous or a deadly weapon may be thus established, at least for the purposes of that occasion. Thus, the jury was permitted to consider whether Townsend's hands were used as deadly weapons in his attack upon his wife. Townsend contends that hands can never be considered deadly weapons, and that the trial court erred in submitting that question to the jury. Although this Court has recently concluded that a boot can be a deadly weapon under I.C. § 18-905, State v. Huston, 121 Idaho 738, 828 P.2d 301 (1992), we have never been called upon to consider whether a body part, by itself, may constitute a deadly weapon under the statute. In general, an instrumentality may be a deadly weapon if it is capable of being used in a deadly manner, and the evidence indicates that its possessor intended on that occasion to use it as a weapon. [3] See Huston, 121 Idaho at 740-41, 828 P.2d at 303-04; State v. Missenberger, 86 Idaho 321, 386 P.2d 559 (1963). Although this suggests that the decision as to what constitutes a deadly weapon is a fact-sensitive determination, it is implicit within the definition that some instrumentality, apart from the human body, must be involved. If one's hands can be considered a deadly weapon, every battery involving the use of one's hands could be charged, prosecuted and submitted to the jury as aggravated battery, and every assault involving the threatened use of one's hands could be charged, prosecuted, and submitted to the jury as aggravated assault. This would blur the statutory distinction between simple misdemeanor assault or battery and aggravated felony assault or battery, and thereby do violence to the legislative intent in providing enhanced punishment for the use of a deadly weapon in the commission of an assault or battery. We therefore conclude that hands, or other body parts or appendages, may not, by themselves, constitute deadly weapons under the aggravated assault and aggravated battery statutes. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court erred in permitting the jury to consider whether the manner in which Townsend used his hands to attack his wife constituted the use of a deadly weapon.