ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
H. B.2520
(By Delegates Perry, Boggs and Ellem)
[Passed March 12, 2011; in effect from passage.]
AN ACT to amend and reenact §25-4-6 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to assignment of youthful
offenders to correctional facilities; specifying circuit court
jurisdiction; modifying age criteria for eligibility for
commitment to youthful offender center; and providing maximum
age for center commitment.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §25-4-6 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 4. CENTERS FOR HOUSING YOUNG ADULT OFFENDERS.
§25-4-6. Assignment of offenders to center; period of center
confinement; return to court; sentence or probation;
revocation of probation.
The circuit court may suspend the imposition of sentence of
any young adult, as defined in this section, convicted of or
pleading guilty to a felony offense, other than an offense punishable by life imprisonment, including, but not limited to,
felony violations of the provisions of chapter seventeen-c of this
code, who had attained his or her eighteenth birthday but had not
reached his or her twenty-fourth birthday at the time the offense
was committed for which the offender is being sentenced and commit
the young adult to the custody of the West Virginia Commissioner of
Corrections to be assigned to a center
: Provided, That no person
over the age of twenty-five may be committed pursuant to this
section. Young adult offenders who have previously been committed
to a young adult offender center are not eligible for commitment to
this program. The period of confinement in the center shall be for
a period of not less than six months but not more than two years to
successfully complete the program requirements set by the warden.
The court shall order a presentence investigation to be conducted
and provide the warden with a copy of the presentence investigation
report, along with the commitment order.
If, in the opinion of the warden, the young adult offender is
an unfit person to remain in the center, the offender shall be
returned to the committing court to be dealt with further according
to law. The offender is entitled to a hearing before the
committing court to review the warden's determination. The
standard for review is whether the warden, considering the
offender's overall record at the center and the offender's
compliance with the center's rules, policies, procedures, programs and services, abused his or her discretion in determining that the
offender is an unfit person to remain in the center. At the
hearing before the committing court, the state need not offer
independent proof of the offender's disciplinary infractions
contained in the record of the center when opportunity for an
administrative hearing on those infractions was previously made
available at the institution. If the court upholds the warden's
determination, the court may sentence the offender for the crime
for which the offender was convicted. In his or her discretion,
the judge may allow the defendant credit on the sentence for time
the offender spent in the center.
A young adult offender shall be returned to the jurisdiction
of the court which originally committed the offender when, in the
opinion of the warden, the young adult offender has satisfactorily
completed the center training program. The offender is then
eligible for probation for the offense the offender was convicted
of or plead guilty to and the judge of the court shall immediately
place the offender on probation. If the court finds there is
reasonable cause to believe that the offender has engaged in new
criminal conduct between his or her release from the center and the
sentencing hearing for the crime for which the offender was ordered
to the center, the judge may sentence the offender for the crime
for which the offender was first convicted, with credit for the
time spent at the center. In the event the offender's probation is subsequently revoked, the judge shall impose the sentence the young
adult offender would have originally received had the offender not
been committed to the center and subsequently placed on probation.
The court shall, however, give the offender credit on his or her
sentence for the time spent in the center.