Bill Text: WV SB361 | 2016 | Regular Session | Comm Sub
Bill Title: Prohibiting persons who have committed crimes against elderly from performing community service involving elderly
Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: (Passed) 2016-05-13 - Chapter 62, Acts, Regular Session, 2016 [SB361 Detail]
Download: West_Virginia-2016-SB361-Comm_Sub.html
WEST virginia legislature
2016 regular session
Committee Substitute
for
Senate Bill 361
By Senators Gaunch, Boso, Mullins, Palumbo, Walters, Williams and Prezioso
[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary; reported on February 3, 2016.]
A BILL to amend and reenact §61-2-10a of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to limiting applicability of sentence suspension with a condition of public service to misdemeanor assault and battery offenses against the elderly; eliminating language affording the possibility of public service for malicious wounding, unlawful wounding and violence to an elderly person during commission of a felony; prohibiting persons convicted of misdemeanor assault or battery where the victim is elderly from performing public service involving the elderly; and removing provision relating to the section’s applicability to persons convicted of certain felonies.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §61-2-10a of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON.
§61-2-10a. Violent crimes against the elderly; sentence not subject to suspension or probation.
(a) If any person be
convicted and sentenced for an offense defined under the provisions of subsection
(b) or (c), section nine or ten of this article, and if the person
shall have committed such offense against a person who is sixty-five years of
age or older, then the sentence shall be mandatory and shall not be subject to
suspension or probation: Provided, That the court may, in its
discretion, suspend the sentence and order probation to any person so convicted
upon condition that such person perform public service for a period of time
deemed appropriate by the court: which service shall Provided,
however, That the public service may not be rendered in or about
facilities or programs providing care or services for the elderly: Provided however
further, That the court may apply the provisions of article
eleven-a, chapter sixty-two of this code to a person committed to a term of one
year or less.
(b) The existence of any
fact which would make any person ineligible for probation under subsection (a)
of this section because of the commission or attempted commission of a felony
against a victim sixty-five years of age or older shall not be applicable
unless such fact is: (i) Found by the court upon a plea of guilty or nolo
contendere; or (ii) found by the jury, if the matter is tried before a jury; or
(iii) found by the court, if the matter is tried by the court, without a jury.
