ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN)— The Minnesota Supreme Court had a theme for its oral arguments Monday: When is something a dangerous weapon, and when isn’t it?
The weapons in question, cars and a broomstick, were part of two cases involving two different charges in opposite corners of the North Star state. In both cases, attorneys for the defendants argued for differing interpretations of the term “likely,” as in “likely to cause death or great bodily harm.”
In the first case, prosecutors sought to uphold the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ reversal of the dismissal of second-degree riot charges against Ayyoob Abdus-Salam. Abdus-Salam was accused of helping organize intersection “takeovers,” where drivers show off their cars and their driving prowess by blocking traffic and spinning donuts in the middle of an intersection, often in close proximity to crowds of observers.
In videos that prosecutors presented to support their case against Abdus-Salam, passengers are seen dangling from the sides of spinning cars. In one video, a man is struck by a car and thrown into the air before landing headfirst on the pavement.
Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Anna Light pointed to that incident as evidence that this use of a car was “likely to cause great bodily harm.”
“The COA correctly held, based on case law, that ‘likely’ means ‘known to be capable of,'” Light said.
Abdus-Salam was an organizer, not a driver— hence the second-degree riot charges, which require that defendants be “armed with a dangerous weapon or” know “that any other participant is armed with a dangerous weapon.”
Another Minnesota statute lays out a definition for “dangerous weapon” which includes firearms, devices designed for use of a weapon, combustibles or “other devices or instrumentality that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is calculated or likely to produce death or great bodily harm.”
Arguing on behalf of Abdus-Salam, attorney Drake Metzger said the cars at his client’s intersection takeovers didn’t cut the mustard for that definition.
“Really, this comes down to whether the motor vehicles as driven in the manner of use were likely to cause death or great bodily harm,” Metzger said. “‘Likely’ must be construed to mean 'highly probable' or 'very probable.'”
The cars, he said, “were not intentionally driven towards anybody,” and “were not driven in a way that the passengers could be thrown from the vehicles.” The drivers lacked the intent, he said, to render their cars dangerous weapons.
Pressed by Justice Margaret Chutich on the case of the man who hit the pavement, Metzger noted that the man can be seen in the video standing up and leaving the scene, making it implausible that he suffered great bodily harm.
While the court — including newly appointed Justice Karl Procaccini, who filled now-Chief Justice Natalie Hudson’s spot on the court after the retirement of former Chief Justice Lorie Gildea — poked extensively at Metzger’s arguments, Justice Barry Anderson also expressed concerns about “prosecution creep” should the court make it too easy to call a car a dangerous weapon.
“We have careless driving, reckless driving, and now we have this charge,” he said. “I look at this charge and I wonder if we’re never going to see a reckless driving charge again, because the prosecution can get to a felony with this charge.”
Light pointed to the circumstances for justification, saying that the proximity of onlookers to the spinning cars increased the likelihood of bodily harm and therefore supported the “dangerous weapon” argument.
Metzger rejected that, saying that under Light’s definition, “There’s no situation where a motor vehicle would not be a dangerous weapon. I think this court needs to clean that up.”
Metzger’s arguments paralleled those of Greg Scanlan, who represented John Bradley in the second case. Bradley was challenging his convictions for second-degree assault and felony domestic assault, arguing that while he struck a woman in the head with a broomstick, the broomstick should not be considered a dangerous weapon. Also involved was an argument that felony domestic assault should be considered an included offense of second-degree assault.
The “catchall” category of dangerous weapons, Scanlan argued, “has nothing to do with being a weapon, and everything to do with being dangerous.”
“The circumstances of use, taken as a whole, must make it more dangerous,” Scanlan said. “The actor’s state of mind makes it more dangerous, or the nature of his conduct makes it more dangerous.”
In Bradley’s case, while he told police that he kept the broom on him for self-defense, “whether or not you can infer in that an intent to cause death or great bodily harm is a stretch.”
Arguing for the state, Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Aaron Welch said that the “dangerous weapon” question should go to a jury rather than being a question of law. “‘Is used or intended to be used,’ is intentionally broad,” he told the court.
Even with Scanlan’s totality-of-the circumstances framework, Welch argued, “Taking a stick and bashing someone over the head … that’s pretty bad.”
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