State v. Carter

Summary

The court held that whether the air gun qualified as a deadly weapon under the governing statutory definition was a legal question subject to plenary review because the relevant operational facts were undisputed. It construed the statute to require that an otherwise operable weapon be readily capable of discharging a shot at the time of the crime, and concluded that the duct-taped air gun did not satisfy that requirement. Because the jury was permitted to rely on an erroneous deadly-weapon theory, the general verdict rule could not preserve the convictions, which were reversed and remanded for a new trial limited to the dangerous-instrument theory.