Hello everyone and welcome back to the rebuttal podcast where we break down case law calamity

and of course chaos in the legal field. I am once again your host, Reb Maisel, and today we are

going to get right into it. Everyone needs a distraction, and I have just the thing for you.

These cases, these issues that I'm going to talk to you about all revolve around

one seminal legal principle, something that what people may not know varies across states,

across jurisdictions. What is a deadly weapon? Can a deadly weapon be your teeth, your hands? Maybe your long

acrylics, which I'm going to get put on my fingers later this afternoon. Is a deadly weapon,

maybe your breath, maybe your aura, your vibe, your cadence. Do courts decide what a deadly weapon is or do the

legislatures? And if it's the latter, how do they decide? Do they all get together in a group and come up

with a big list of different things you can use that might be deadly, might not be, just like we're

playing an episode of Clue.

Okay? Colonel Mustard in the library with a rope. Is the rope deadly? Is a rope inherently deadly?

Probably not. No. Ropes used for a lot of different things. When does it become deadly?

If you're holding it in your hands while you're assaulting someone,

does that mean assault with a deadly weapon, even though we haven't even proven that your

assault had anything to do with you having a rope? You just happened to have it. Maybe you were at work,

all right? On the docks, docking boats, and you start punching somebody who's bothering you,

rope still in hand? Would a criminal defense attorney advise you if you could pause that

interaction and call them real quick, like we're in the matrix, okay? Would they advise you

to drop the rope before you hit somebody? Throw it away from your person to make sure that

you can't in that moment be committing an assault that normally would be simple, simple assault,

okay, maybe a misdemeanor, maybe some probation. But if you keep that rope in your hand,

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