GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SESSION 2007
SESSION LAW 2008-15
HOUSE BILL 946
AN ACT to make an offense of vandalism that results in more than five thousand dollars in damages a class I felony.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1. G.S. 14-144 reads as rewritten:
"§ 14-144. Injuring houses, churches, fences and walls.
If any person shall, by any other means than burning or
attempting to burn, unlawfully and willfully demolish, destroy, deface, injure
or damage any of the houses or other buildings mentioned in this Chapter in the
Article entitled Arson and Other Burnings; or shall by any other means than
burning or attempting to burn unlawfully and willfully demolish, pull down,
destroy, deface, damage or injure any church, uninhabited house, outhouse or
other house or building not mentioned in such article; or shall unlawfully and
willfully burn, destroy, pull down, injure or remove any fence, wall or other
enclosure, or any part thereof, surrounding or about any yard, garden,
cultivated field or pasture, or about any church or graveyard, or about any
factory or other house in which machinery is used, every person so offending
shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.punished as follows:
(1) If the damage is five thousand dollars ($5,000) or less, the person is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
(2) If the damage is more than five thousand dollars ($5,000), the person is guilty of a Class I felony."
SECTION 2. This act becomes effective December 1, 2008, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 17th day of June, 2008.
s/ Beverly E. Perdue
President of the Senate
s/ Joe Hackney
Speaker of the House of Representatives
s/ Michael F. Easley
Governor
Approved 2:11 p.m. this 25th day of June, 2008