“They never found a weapon.”

Then there is the person accused of any crime with a weapon who believes that since no weapon was recovered or introduced into evidence at trial, that he cannot be found guilty of having a weapon. Unfortunately, this is not the case.33 And ironic as it may seem, in certain cases where the so called weapon used is not a firearm or otherwise capable of causing death or serious bodily injury or not even a weapon at all, a defendant may be better off having the police finding the alleged weapon than not finding it.34 The reason being is that without the weapon all the jury has to rely on for the existence of the weapon is the witness or witnesses’ word versus the word of the defendant.

The basis in truth for the no weapon myth may come from the line of cases that state in a possession of a controlled substance case if the drug in question is not introduced into evidence the defendant prevails.35 In a forgery or uttering a forgery case if the document that was forged or uttered is not introduced into evidence then the defendant may also prevail.36