BILL REQ. #:  H-3575.1 

Read first time 01/14/2004.   Referred to Committee on Criminal Justice & Corrections.

     AN ACT Relating to ensuring accurate identification of persons who commit crimes; adding a new section to chapter 9A.76 RCW; creating a new section; and prescribing penalties.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   The legislature finds that the state has a compelling interest in ensuring the adequate, reliable, and valid identification of persons who commit criminal acts, that maintaining the public health, safety, and welfare requires a standard and readily recognizable means of identifying persons who commit criminal acts, that there is no right of privacy that allows persons to hide or disguise their identities with the intent of avoiding identification, discovery, or apprehension as the perpetrators of criminal acts, and that imposing additional sanctions on persons who hide or disguise their identity for the purpose of avoiding identification, discovery, or apprehension as the perpetrators of criminal acts will greatly aid in dealing with the problem of persons who engage in criminal behavior. The legislature intends by this act to enhance the likelihood that persons who engage in unlawful conduct may be more easily identified by ensuring that a true and accurate likeness of the person's face can be observed.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   A new section is added to chapter 9A.76 RCW to read as follows:
     A person who is a participant in or party to a crime who goes in disguise by wearing a mask or other natural or man-made device, object, or thing that would prevent recognition of the true and accurate likeness of the person's face by hiding, concealing, camouflaging, or otherwise preventing an unobstructed view of the person's eyes, nose, cheekbones, and mouth in order to avoid identification, discovery, or apprehension while in the course of or in furtherance of any crime or in immediate flight therefrom is guilty of criminal disguise. Partial obstruction of the view of the mouth caused by the normal growth of natural facial hair is not considered as going in disguise under this section.
     A person who is guilty of criminal disguise is subject on the first offense to imprisonment for not less than thirty days, or by a fine of not less than three thousand dollars, or by both such imprisonment and fine. On each subsequent conviction, the person is subject to twice the amount of imprisonment, or fine, or both such imprisonment and fine as on the previous conviction.