State v. Henn

This is an indictment for assault in the second degree. One of the kinds of assault that come within this degree is assault “with a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce grievous bodily harm.” Subsection 4, § 187, Pen. Code. This indictment charges the assault to have been “with a weapon, to wit, a knife,” “the said knife being then and there a weapon and instrument likely to produce grievous bodily harm.” It is objected that as a knife is not necessarily a weapon likely to do grievous bodily harm, but may or may not be so, this knife ought to be more particularly described in…