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Pulled over for speeding last summer, Krystal Lynn Lowe was nervous, as most teens would be, when a Maryland State Police trooper searched her car. Trooper First Class R.E. North asked the 18-year-old if she had anything he should know about. She told him she had a Taser. Under the driver's seat of the 1999 Cadillac Seville, North found a Taser designed to look like a cell phone, the hand-held kind that stuns on contact. Having it hidden allowed the trooper to charge her with having a concealed dangerous weapon. North stopped her about 8:30 p.m. July 15 on I-70 west at Linganore Road. "All she would have to do was reach down and could have used (the) Taser on me," North wrote in charging documents. "I would not have known it was a Taser until it was used or attempted to be used on me," he said. People who wish to carry a Taser -- beyond those who do so for work -- would be wise to consult a lawyer before doing so to see how the law applies to them, said Bryon C. Black, Lowe's defense attorney. As part of his legal research, Black found a 2002 case he would have cited in court had the case gone to trial. In that case, it was left up to the trier of fact, a judge or a jury, to determine the manner in which the item was being carried. "Was it benign or being carried with intent to injure?" he said. Lowe's case did not go to trial because Black reached a plea agreement with prosecutors to drop the weapons charge. Lowe pleaded guilty to speeding and driving on a suspended license. After the Motor Vehicle Administration reinstated Lowe's license, a Frederick County District Court judge granted the young woman probation before judgment, which is not a conviction. Contacted recently -- her court case concluded last fall -- Lowe said legal consequences didn't occur to her when a friend's mother gave her the Taser for protection. "I didn't know that it was illegal," she said. Carrying a dangerous weapon is punishable by as much as three years in prison and as much as a $1,000 fine. "I wasn't planning to use it on nobody," she said. Handcuffed and taken to jail, Lowe spent about an hour in custody before being released on personal recognizance. In addition to the weapons offense, she faced charges of driving on a suspended license and traveling 94 mph in a 65 mph zone. "It was the first time I'd been in serious trouble," she said. Black said state laws regarding weapons are "incredibly complex and can be quite confusing. I find that I often have to discuss the finer points of the law and the circumstances of each case with the prosecutors and law enforcement officers before we can move forward with resolving the cases."
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