From yesterday's Oregon Supreme Court decision in State v. Cortes , written by Justice Bronson James:

Defendant, who is houseless, is on probation and subject to the general conditions of probation provided for by Oregon law. Those conditions include the requirement that a probationer shall "[n]ot possess weapons, firearms or dangerous animals." Defendant's probation officer issued a probation violation report alleging that defendant had violated the general weapons condition when he reported to the probation office with a knife in his backpack. At the probation violation hearing, defendant claimed that, although it was a knife, it was a steak knife, and it was therefore not a weapon but a tool, an essential eating implement that defendant carried in his backpack by necessity because, bei

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