Senate Bill No. 12
(By Senator Rowe)
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[Introduced January 8, 2003; referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section fourteen, article eight, chapter sixty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to increasing criminal penalties for intentional cemetery damage; providing that each mausoleum, burial site within a mausoleum, grave, gravestone or other gravemarker or other designated human burial site desecrated constitutes a separate offense; and providing for a felony offense for persons who intentionally desecrate four or more mausoleums, graves, gravestones or gravemarkers or designated burial sites, including any combination thereof, during any continuous sequence of acts of desecration.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section fourteen, article eight, 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:

§61-8-14. Disinterment or displacement of dead body or part thereof; damage to cemetery or graveyard; penalties; damages in civil action.

(a) Any person who unlawfully disinters or displaces a dead human body, or any part of a dead human body, placed or deposited in any vault, mausoleum or any temporary or permanent burial place, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in the penitentiary or other suitable state correctional facility for a determinate sentence of not less than two nor more than five years.
(b) (1) Any person who intentionally desecrates any cemetery, graveyard, mausoleum, burial site within a mausoleum, grave, gravestone or other gravemarker or other designated human burial site is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, or and confined in jail not less than ten days nor more than one year, or both fined and confined: Provided, That each mausoleum, burial site within a mausoleum, grave, gravestone or other designated human burial site desecrated is a separate offense: Provided, however, That any person who intentionally desecrates four or more mausoleums, gravesites within a mausoleum, graves, gravestones or other gravemarkers or other designated burial sites, including any combination thereof, during any continuous sequence of acts of desecration, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than two thousand dollars nor more than five thousand dollars and confined in a correctional facility not less than one nor more than three years.
(2) For the purposes of this subsection, "desecrate" means defacing, damaging or otherwise physically mistreating in a way that a reasonable person knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover his or her actions.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.