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.