COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE

FOR

Senate Bill No. 81

(By Senators Craigo, Plymale, Ball, Hunter,

Kessler and Edgell)

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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;

reported January 20, 2000.]

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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 temporarily disabling substances or devices, including disabling chemical substances and electronic shock devices, to commit robbery; and providing for penalties therefore.

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; penalties.
(a) Any person who commits or attempts to commit robbery by: (1) Committing violence to the person, including, but not limited to, partial strangulation or suffocation or by striking or beating; or (2) uses the threat of deadly force by the presenting of a firearm or other deadly weapon, is guilty of robbery in the first degree and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in a state correctional facility not less than ten years.
(b) Any person who commits or attempts to commit robbery by placing the victim in fear of bodily injury by means other than those set forth in subsection (a) of this section or any person who commits or attempts to commit robbery by the use of any means designed to temporarily disable the victim, including, but not limited to, the use of a disabling chemical substance or an electronic shock device, is guilty of robbery in the second degree and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in a correctional facility for not less than five years nor more than eighteen years.
(c) If any person: (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 guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty years; and (2) if any person in committing, or in attempting to commit, any offense defined in the preceding clause (1) of this subsection, assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, disabling chemical substance or an electronic shock device, he shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten years nor more than twenty- five years.

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(NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to include electronic shock devices and disabling chemical sprays as weapons for purposes of the robbery statute.

This section has been completely rewritten; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.)