A Court Just Ruled That Whiskey Can Be Considered a Weapon — Here’s Why

Bottles of Jameson, Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s whiskey are displayed July 9, 2018, at Rossi’s Deli in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

The California Supreme Court has determined that whiskey can be considered a weapon in arson cases, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.

Chasity Hope Johnson was convicted of arson for a fire she started in January 2021 at her former boyfriend’s house in Cotati, a city north of San Francisco. She was sentenced to five years in prison, including three years for using a “device designed to accelerate the fire.” The device in question? The whiskey in an open bottle that was found in her car, along with two lighters. Officers found a “trail of liquid” around the cat door that let pets in and out of the house, per the San Francisco Chronicle.

Johnson’s lawyer argued that whiskey cannot be considered a “device,” since state law defines a device as “a piece of equipment or a mechanism intended, or devised, to hasten or increase the fire’s progress.” However, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled that not all mechanisms are machines, based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of “mechanism”: a process or technique for achieving a result. The whiskey, in this case, was a “device designed to accelerate the fire,” due to its flammability.

“Whiskey is comprised of alcohol, which, similar to gasoline, is a flammable liquid,” judge John Devine wrote in the 3-0 ruling, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Moreover, gasoline also is not made to start fires, but rather is intended to be used as fuel for automobiles and other motorized machines. We have little difficulty in concluding that the using of whiskey … similarly shows a specific intent to harm.”

Johnson appealed to the state Supreme Court, which declined to review the case, thus deeming the appellate court’s decision a binding precedent for all trial courts in California.

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