Courthouse Knife

* I couldn’t help noticing the irony of your juxtaposition of the story on the latest court hearing on the San Diego County Medical Services issue with the bulk of the piece on court security in your April 2 edition.

I went to the San Diego County Courthouse April 1 to cover the CMS hearing for a local weekly. At the entrance, I was rudely told that the miniature utility knife I wear on my key chain--blade length: a quarter of an inch--was a violation of the law, and, unless I removed and threw it away before I entered the courthouse, I would be guilty of a felony. I asked if I could check it with the marshals at the gate, and I was told I could not; all I could do was throw it away, return to my car (I don’t drive a car) or throw it in the bushes and hope it was there when I got out. (It wasn’t.) I was especially surprised that the county people were making such a big deal about a utility knife, since I’ve previously brought it into the federal courthouse with no problem.

Imagine my surprise when I read your article the next morning and found out my knife wasn’t illegal at all, and it was taken from me simply because the local marshal, Mike Sgobba, has decided it would take too long to measure each knife blade to see if it’s shorter than the 4-inch maximum allowed under state law. (Do you really need a ruler--or more than one second of staff time--to tell the difference between 4 inches and a quarter of an inch?)

I couldn’t help wondering why they were making such a big deal over an object that could hardly be used as any sort of weapon and how many of the 303 knives and 847 “miscellaneous” items seized in the last two months were just as innocuous as mine.

But the biggest thing I wonder about is how the county of San Diego can blithely shell out money for this sort of foolishness while CMS and other crucial social programs are allowed to die from fiscal anemia.

MARK GABRISH CONLAN

San Diego