Senate Bill No. 81
(By Senators Craigo, Plymale, Ball, Hunter, Kessler and Edgell)
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[Introduced January 14, 2000; 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 or attempt to commit Any person who
commits or 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 is guilty of a felony and, upon
conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary imprisoned for
not less than ten years. If any person commit or attempt to
commit Any person who commits or attempts to commit a robbery in
any other mode or by any other means, except as provided for in
the succeeding paragraph subsection (b) of this section, he shall
be is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined
in the penitentiary imprisoned for not less than five nor more
than eighteen years.
(b)(1) If any person (a) Any person who, 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 is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be
confined in the penitentiary imprisoned for not less than ten nor more than twenty years. and if any person (2) Any person who,
(b) in committing or in attempting to commit any offense defined
in the preceding clause (a) of this paragraph subdivision (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, he
shall be is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be
confined in the penitentiary imprisoned for not less than ten
years nor more than twenty-five years: Provided, That for
purposes of this subsection, mace or pepper spray is a dangerous
or deadly weapon or device.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to include mace and pepper
spray as dangerous weapons for purposes of determining 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.