ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
H. B. 2205
(By Delegates Yeager and Staton)
[Passed April 12, 1997; in effect ninety days from passage.]
AN ACT to amend and reenact section twenty-four, article twenty,
chapter nineteen of the code of West Virginia, one-thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to criminal
penalties and restitution for intentionally causing injury or
death to a law-enforcement or fire prevention or investigation
animal or an animal used by the department of military affairs
and public safety.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty-four, article twenty, chapter nineteen of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
Article 20. DOGS AND CATS.
§19-20-24. Causing death or injury to animals used by
law-enforcement officials or by fire prevention or
investigation officials; criminal penalties.
Any person who, without justification, and with the unlawful intent to inflict serious physical injury or death, causes the
death of any trained dog or horse used by law-enforcement
officials, the department of military affairs and public safety or
by fire prevention or investigation officials in the performance of
their official duties is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction
thereof, shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars nor more
than one thousand dollars and imprisoned in the penitentiary for a
definite term of not more than three years.
Any person who, without justification, willfully and
unlawfully causes physical injury to any trained dog or horse used
by law-enforcement officials, the department of military affairs
and public safety or by fire prevention or investigation officials
in the performance of their official duties is guilty of a
misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more
than five hundred dollars, or confined in the county jail not more
than six months, or both.
Any person convicted of a violation of this section shall be
ordered to make restitution to the law-enforcement agency, the
department of mitlitary affairs and publi c safety or to the state
fire marshal or other fire prevention or investigation department
or agency owning the animal for any veterinary bills and
replacement costs of any disabled or killed animal.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide for penalties and
restitution for intentional injury or death to animals used in law- enforcement and fire prevention and investigation.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.