HOUSE BILL REPORT

                  HB 1142

                      As Passed House:

                      February 12, 1999

Title:  An act relating to technical corrections to various criminal laws.

Brief Description:  Making technical corrections to various criminal laws.

Sponsors:  Representatives Constantine and McDonald; by request of Statute Law Committee.

Brief History:

  Committee Activity:

Judiciary:  1/28/99, 2/2/99 [DP].

Floor Activity:

Passed House:  2/12/99, 94-0.

                 Brief Summary of Bill

$Corrects various technical defects in criminal laws such as:  cross-references to repealed statutes; cross-references to altered subsection designations; cross-references to defunct entities or entities whose names have been changed; and grammatical or punctuation errors.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY

Majority Report:  Do pass.  Signed by 12 members:  Representatives Carrell, Republican Co-Chair; Constantine, Democratic Co-Chair; Hurst, Democratic Vice Chair; Lambert, Republican Vice Chair; Cox; Dickerson; Edmonds; Esser; Kastama; Lantz; McDonald and Schindler.

Staff:  Bill Perry (786-7123).

Background:

Technical errors may develop in the statutes for a variety of reasons.  Many of these errors are the result of successive amendments to the same section of law over several years.  Others are the result of simple drafting errors or failure to find and amend every statute that contains a reference to another statute that has been repealed or amended in a way that makes the reference incorrect.

The Code Reviser's office, under the direction of the Statute Law Committee, is authorized to correct certain "manifest errors" in the statutes.  These errors may include such things as mistakes in spelling, or obvious clerical or typographical errors.

The Code Reviser is also authorized to recommend to the Legislature changes regarding deficiencies, conflicts, obsolescence, and the need for reorganization in the statutes.

Summary of Bill:

Various statutes relating to criminal law are revised to correct technical defects.  These defects include such things as:

CStatutes that contain cross-references to other statutes that have been repealed;

CStatutes that contain incorrect cross-references to subsections that have been renumbered by amendments to the referred-to statute;

CStatutes that refer to entities, such as agencies or accounts, that no longer exist or have had name changes as the result of amendments to other statutes;

CStatutes that by their own terms expired as of a date that has already passed; and

CStatutes that have long definition sections in which the terms defined are not in alphabetical order.

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Not requested.

Effective Date:  Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  The bill makes necessary technical corrections and will make the code more readable for users.

Testimony Against:  None.

Testified:  (In support) Gary Reid, Code Reviser's office.