ENROLLED

Senate Bill No. 97

(By Senators Love, Ball, Kessler, Hunter, Sharpe and Dawson)

____________

[Passed March 11, 2000; in effect ninety days from passage.]

____________


AN ACT to amend and reenact sections one and two, article eight, chapter sixty-two of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to criminal offenses by inmates; and creating the additional criminal offense of killing, wounding or injuring any person at a correctional facility, or conspiring to do the same.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections one and two, article eight, chapter sixty-two of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty- one, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 8. CRIMES BY AND PROCEEDINGS AGAINST CONVICTS.

§62-8-1. Offenses by inmates; conspiracy.

A person imprisoned or otherwise in the custody of the commissioner of corrections is guilty of a felony if he or she kills, wounds or inflicts other bodily injury upon any person at any correctional facility; or breaks, cuts or injures any building, fixture or fastening of any correctional facility, or any part thereof, for the purpose of escaping or aiding any other inmate to escape therefrom, or renders any correctional facility less secure as a place of confinement; or makes, procures, secretes or has in his or her possession, any instrument, tool or other thing for such purpose, or with intent to kill, wound or inflict bodily injury; or resists the lawful authority of an officer or guard of any correctional facility for such purpose or with such intent. Any three or more inmates so confined, or in such custody, who conspire together to commit any offense mentioned in this section are each guilty of a felony.
§62-8-2. Punishment of convicts; no discharge from correctional institution while prosecution is pending.

(a) Any inmate who violates the provisions of section one of this article and the violation results in the death of any person is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in a state correctional facility for life, and he or she shall not be eligible for parole, notwithstanding the provisions of article twelve, chapter sixty-two of this code.
(b) Any inmate who violates the provisions of section one of this article and is serving a term of confinement for life, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, he or she may not be eligible for parole, notwithstanding the provisions of article twelve, chapter sixty-two of this code.
(c) Any inmate who is not serving a term of confinement for life and who violates the provisions of section one of this article and whose violation did not result in the death of any person is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in a state correctional facility not less than one nor more than five years. Any term of confinement imposed pursuant to this subsection is to be consecutive to any term of confinement already imposed.
(d) An inmate prosecuted for an offense under this article may not be discharged from a state correctional facility while the prosecution is pending.
(e) Any person convicted pursuant to the provisions of this section may not be sentenced under sections eighteen or nineteen, article eleven, chapter sixty-one of this code: Provided, That if an inmate commits an offense punishable by confinement in a state correctional facility, other than the offenses defined in section one of this article, he or she shall be punished as if he or she had been discharged before committing the offense.