Senate Bill No. 65

(By Senators Craigo and Love)

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[Introduced February 19, 1997; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section twelve, article two, chapter sixty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to including the use of mace or pepper spray in the definition of aggravated robbery.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twelve, article two, chapter sixty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON.

§61-2-12. Robbery or attempted robbery; bank robbery and assaults in committing or attempting; penalties.

(a) If any person commit commits, or attempt attempts to commit, robbery by partial strangulation or suffocation, or by striking or beating, or by other violence to the person, or by the threat or presenting of firearms, mace, pepper spray or other deadly weapon or instrumentality whatsoever, he shall be or she is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten years. If any person commit commits, or attempt attempts to commit, a robbery in any other mode or by any other means, except as provided for in the succeeding paragraph of this section, he shall be or she is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary Mount Olive Correctional Complex not less than five nor more than eighteen years.
(b) If any person (a) (1) by force and violence, or by putting in fear, feloniously takes, or feloniously attempts to take, from the person or presence of another any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management or possession of, any bank, he shall be or she is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary Mount Olive Correctional Complex not less than ten nor more than twenty years; and if any person (b) (2) in committing, or in attempting to commit, any offense defined in the preceding clause (a) of this paragraph subdivision (a) of this subsection, assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, he shall be or she is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary Mount Olive Correctional Complex not less than ten years nor more than twenty-five years: Provided, That for the purpose of this subsection, mace or pepper spray is considered a dangerous weapon or device.




NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to include the use of mace or pepper spray under the definition of what constitutes aggravated robbery.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.