Court Opinion

ID: 9662875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:20:41.789624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:43.466872
License: Public Domain

J. CURTISS BROWN, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
“Et tu, Brute?” Once again the Texas Legislature has managed to stab itself and the public in the back. In drafting Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 46.11 the Legislature failed to think before it enacted. Worse yet, such drafting has caused the Court of Criminal Appeals to acquit persons who rightfully should have been convicted under § 46.11.
Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 46.11 reads in part:
Deadly Weapon in Penal Institution (a) A person commits an offense if, while confined in a penal institution, he intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:
(1) carries on or about his person a deadly weapon; or
(2) possesses or conceals a deadly weapon in the penal institution.
At first glance this appears to be a perfectly satisfactory statute. It is clear that we do not want inmates or unauthorized personnel carrying or hiding weapons in our penal institutions. It would create a danger to prison personnel, hapless visitors and other inmates to allow such behavior. However, the Legislature destroyed its own purpose in writing such a statute by putting the words “deadly” in front of “weapon.”
As the majority points out, a knife is not a deadly weapon per se. Denham v. State, *543574 S.W.2d 129, 130 (Tex.Crim.App.1978). Thus, to show a knife is a deadly weapon the court must look to its use or intended use. Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 1.07(a)(ll)(B). This rule is quite logical in that we do not desire that people who carry pocketknives or Swiss Army knives for their own benign purposes be arrested for having a “deadly weapon.” But a distinction must be made between an ordinary knife and a shank.
A shank is a unique device created almost exclusively by those confined in penal institutions. In fact, the term “shank” is not defined as a weapon in any dictionary. Its definition comes exclusively from within the prison walls: a homemade stabbing device. It is common knowledge that these shanks are made and used by inmates to kill or seriously wound others. But even if it were not common knowledge, the testimony in this case by a Texas Department of Corrections officer aptly demonstrates it:
(Prosecutor) Q: Okay. Could you tell the jury approximately how many homemade stabbing devices or shanks you have come across during your employment with the Texas Department of Corrections?
(Officer) A: I’d say approximately forty or fifty.
Q: Okay. Have you ever seen anybody get stabbed or seen the results of a stabbing as a result of one of these homemade stabbing devices or shanks? A: Yes, sir, I have.
Q: Approximately how many stabbings have you seen?
A: About two dozen.
To say that a shank is a knife and thus not a deadly weapon per se is ludicrous. Under Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 1.07(a)(ll)(A), a deadly weapon is defined as:
A firearm, or anything manifestly designed, made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury.
The public knows that a kitchen knife is designed for use in the kitchen, that a Swiss Army knife is designed for any little job that may present itself, but a shank is designed and crafted to hurt or kill people in the penal setting. It cannot be seriously asserted that inmates are making these shanks to clean their fingernails or to make wood carvings to send home for the holidays. These weapons have only one' purpose: the infliction of serious bodily injury and/or death.
Because the Legislature has seen fit to require the weapon to be “deadly”, it is incumbent on the courts to take action and recognize that a shank, like a firearm, is a deadly weapon per se. Its purpose, its manner of creation and the place where it exists all show that a shank is manifestly designed to cause serious bodily injury or death. This clearly falls within the definition of deadly weapon. To require that the shank be exhibited in some threatening manner or used to injure someone before a violation of § 46.11 occurs cannot be what was intended by the Legislature. In fact, a strict reading of § 46.11(a) would mean that there could only be a violation of (a)(2) if the inmate or person were concealing a firearm because one cannot conceal and exhibit a weapon simultaneously, and so far a firearm has been the only weapon held to be deadly per se. Surely there are other weapons that are deadly per se or the Legislature would have simply said “firearm” and left the rest of the language out of § 1.07(a)(ll)(A).
The Legislature should rewrite the statute to make it a violation to carry or conceal any weapon in a penal institution. Further, the courts should not be hesitant to recognize that a shank is per se a deadly weapon.