Legislature(2001 - 2002)
02/12/2002 03:40 PM Senate STA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 240-TERRORISTIC THREATENING/PIPELINE DAMAGE
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT announced there is a proposed CS for SB 240.
JOE BALASH, Staff to Senate State Affairs Committee, explained
the work draft does two things. First, it adopts the amendments
that the Department of Law recommended in previous hearings.
Those have to do with making damaging pipeline or facilities part
of the conspiracy statutes. It also incorporated changes to
murder in the first degree.
The major change occurs on page 4 where the criminal mischief
statutes are discussed. Originally, a separate crime of
intentionally damaging a pipeline or an oil or gas facility was
created as a class A felony. Under current law, that particular
crime is criminal mischief in the first degree and classified as
a class B felony. Rather than create a separate law, they made
criminal mischief in the first degree a class A felony,
accomplishing the same thing. All the other crimes within
criminal mischief in the first degree meet the requirements of a
class A felony, which made it easier to move that crime up.
Problems arose in criminal mischief in the second degree because
part of criminal mischief in the second degree is tampering with
a pipeline or oil and gas facility. That is something the
department wanted to move up in classification to a class B
felony. The only way to do that was to pull everything else out
of second degree and put them into third degree. This eventually
resulted in a cascading effect when third degree became fourth
degree and fourth degree became fifth degree. All of the
classifications of felonies and misdemeanors also moved down the
scale. All the changes in references in various statutes are
reflected in the CS.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT reminded members that the Attorney General's
office had suggested that the original bill structure would avoid
the cascading and renumbering effect. However, the result of that
troubled the legislative legal counsel because the existing
criminal mischief section would have this new law tacked on
instead of incorporated into the list. The CS follows the
suggestions of the legislative legal drafters to keep the
statutory structure as clean as possible.
He asked if members had questions for Mr. Balash on the structure
of the CS.
SENATOR STEVENS asked if there are already guidelines for the
fourth and fifth degrees.
MR. BALASH said that would be a more appropriate question for
Mrs. Carpeneti.
ANNIE CARPENETI from the Department of Law said the crimes are
simply being reclassified. She added it does not change the
sentencing provisions for the cascading offenses.
SENATOR STEVENS said he can certainly understand bringing in gas
pipeline or oil pipeline supporting facility but questioned
including an airline or commercial vehicle. He asked if this
means that anything that is done to an aircraft that exceeds
$500.00 is automatically a second-degree criminal mischief
violation.
He said he was referring to page 5, Section 9 and wondered if the
reference to an airplane includes both private and commercial.
MRS. CARPENETI said this is existing law and does include all
aircraft. Currently this is a class C felony and she thought the
original drafters of the criminal code intended for this to be
broad based because of the potential harm to people and property
when anyone tampers with aircraft.
SENATOR STEVENS thought there should be varying degrees of
punishment based on the size of the aircraft.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT offered the thought that whether it is a
Cessna or a larger aircraft there is the potential for the loss
of life.
SENATOR STEVENS responded one is a catastrophic loss of life and
one could be criminal mischief. In his opinion, there is a
difference between the intent to damage an aircraft that is worth
$50,000.00 to $100,000.00 versus a 60 passenger or larger
airline.
MRS. CARPENETI said the scheme of criminal mischief does allow
for that. There is charging discretion in the prosecutor's office
to account for the differences in harm to people and property.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT asked if she agrees that the CS contains the
substance of what the Department of Law suggested.
MRS. CARPENETI thanked the Chairman and said they are in support
of the substantive changes and understand the rationale behind
setting it up this way.
There was no further testimony.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT asked for a motion.
SENATOR DAVIS made a motion to adopt the 22-GS2097\F Luckhaupt
2/12/02 version as the working document.
There was no objection.
SENATOR THERRIAULT noted there were no proposed amendments and
the fiscal notes from the Department of Law and the Public
Defender Agency were zero.
He asked for the will of the committee.
SENATOR DAVIS made a motion to move CSSB 240(STA) and two fiscal
notes from committee with individual recommendations.
There being no objection, CSSB 240(STA) moved from committee.
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