Page 52 - TPA Journal May June 2025

perpetrator.” etknife “if he needed to do so to facilitate his
In McCain itself, the near-unanimous Court deter- crime.”
mined that, under the particular circumstances of Nor does the fact that Appellant in fact used the
that case, “the mere carrying of a butcher knife” pocketknife for the non-deadly purpose of cutting
that was plainly visible in, but never removed the nylon strap of the soft-side cooler necessarily
from, the defendant’s back pocket as he violently mean that this was his only intended use for it, as
assaulted the victim “was legally sufficient for a the court of appeals seems to have believed. A
factfinder to conclude that the ‘intended use’ for rational jury might readily have found that an
the knife was that it be capable of causing death or intent to use the pocketknife to intimidate Parks
serious bodily injury.” into releasing the cooler could coexist with an
Indeed, it did not even matter to our bottom line in intent to cut the strap. Indeed, the fact that the
McCain, we also observed in Flores, that “the pocketknife proved sharp enough to cut through
defendant never made any verbal threat to use the the strap likely contributed to a jury finding that it
knife.” was dangerous enough, in the course of the scrum,
In the instant case, several police officers testified to cause Parks actual, not just hypothetical, seri-
that the pocketknife Appellant produced in this ous bodily injury. We cannot say that such a find-
case was both “sharp” and “pointed,” and, at least ing would have lacked rational evidentiary sup-
hypothetically, capable of causing death or serious port under the circumstances.
bodily injury. Of course, “under the first step in
McCain, the question is not whether the object Having determined that the evidence was legally
‘could’ possibly be a deadly weapon under a hypo- sufficient to support a jury finding that the pock-
thetical scenario. Instead, it is whether the object etknife was, in the manner of its use or intended
‘could be a deadly weapon under the facts of the use, a deadly weapon, we turn to the second step
case.’” of the McCain analysis: whether Appellant “used
Here, the pocketknife was before the jury, and the or exhibited” the pocketknife during the robbery.
jurors could see for themselves that it had a blade We said in McCain that “a person ‘uses or exhibits
of between two and three inches long. A knife a deadly weapon’ under the aggravated robbery
blade of this length has been found by this Court statute if he employs the weapon in any manner
to be a deadly weapon under certain circum- that ‘facilitates the associated felony.’” “Had the
stances. And Appellant pulled out the pocketknife knife been completely concealed by [McCain’s]
while he was struggling with Parks for possession clothing,” we observed, “additional facts would
of the soft-side cooler. have been needed to establish that the butcher
Given their close quarters, the potential threat to knife was used.”
Parks was not diminished by the fact that evidence But the knife was partially
showed that Appellant kept the knife close to his exposed, and from that exposure,
own body. Also, although Appellant made no overt the factfinder could rationally con-
threat or gesture to actually use the pocketknife to clude that the knife was exhibited
cut Parks, the jury could rationally have found that during the criminal transaction, or
a threat to do so was at least implicit in Appellant’s at least, that its presence was used
repeated entreaties for Parks to, e.g., “Just let me by [McCain] to instill in the com-
go,” and “Let me have it,” before pulling out the plainant apprehension, reducing
pocketknife, together with his statement, “Come the likelihood of resistance during
on, DeWayne,” once the pocketknife was out and the encounter.
visible. The jury could readily have concluded that
Appellant’s intention was to convey to Parks a Thus, McCain “used” the butcher knife inasmuch
willingness, however reluctantly, to use the pock- as its use, even if only to intimidate the victim,

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