sb97 sub1 enr

ENROLLED

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE

FOR
Senate Bill No. 97
(Senators Kessler, Hunter, McKenzie, Edgell, Anderson, Minard, Caldwell, Minear and Sharpe, original sponsors)
____________
[Passed February 19, 2002; in effect ninety days from passage.]
____________

AN ACT to amend article three-c, chapter sixty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section fourteen-a, relating to creating the crime of harassing another by means of a computer and establishing penalties therefor.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That article three-c, chapter sixty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section fourteen-a, to read as follows:

ARTICLE 3C. WEST VIRGINIA COMPUTER CRIME AND ABUSE ACT.

§61-3C-14a. Obscene, anonymous, harassing and threatening communications by computer; penalty.

(a) It is unlawful for any person, with the intent to harass or abuse another person, use a computer to:

(1) Make contact with another without disclosing his or her identity with the intent to harass or abuse;

(2) Make contact with a person after being requested by the person to desist from contacting them;

(3) Threaten to commit a crime against any person or property; or

(4) Cause obscene material to be delivered or transmitted to a specific person after being requested to desist from sending such material.

For purposes of this section, "obscene material" means material that:

(A) An average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, is intended to appeal to the prurient interest, or is pandered to a prurient interest;

(B) An average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexually explicit conduct consisting of an ultimate sexual act, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, an excretory function, masturbation, lewd exhibition of the genitals, or sadomasochistic sexual abuse; and

(b) It is unlawful for any person to knowingly permit a computer under his or her control to be used for any purpose prohibited by this section.

(c) Any offense committed under this section may be determined to have occurred at the place at which the contact originated or the place at which the contact was received or intended to be received.

(d) Any person who violates a provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars or confined in a county or regional jail not more than six months, or both. For a second or subsequent offense, the person is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or confined in a county or regional jail for not more than one year, or both.