State v. Easterlin

¶1 — “Armed criminals pose an increasing and major threat to public safety and can turn any crime into serious injury or death.” “Hard Time for Armed Crime Act.” Laws of 1995, ch. 129, § l(l)(a) (Initiative 159). Reducing armed crime is a laudable goal.

Chambers, J.

¶2 But neither the initiative nor the legislature has defined “armed,” and this seemingly simple question of *206whether a defendant was in fact armed, and more importantly how to determine whether a defendant was armed, has come before us time and time again. It presents a particularly difficult question when the defendant had only…