Brief Description: Increasing the sentencing range for first degree criminal mistreatment.

Sponsors: Senate Committee on Judiciary (originally sponsored by Senators Stevens, Honeyford, Pflug, Delvin, Holmquist, McCaslin, Swecker and Roach).

Senate Committee on Judiciary
House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness

Background: The presumptive standard sentencing range for ranked felonies is determined by the seriousness level of the offense and the offender's specific criminal history (offender score). Criminal mistreatment in the first degree is a class B felony ranked at seriousness level IX. If a person is convicted of criminal mistreatment in the first degree and has no prior felony convictions, that person would be sentenced to a period of 31 to 41 months, absent any facts supporting an aggravated sentence or mitigating circumstances.

A person is guilty of first degree criminal mistreatment if the person recklessly causes great bodily harm to a child or dependent person by withholding any of the basic necessities of life. The person must be a parent of a child, the person entrusted with the physical custody of a child or dependent person, a person who has assumed the responsibility to provide to a dependent person the basic necessities of life or a person employed to provide to the child or dependent person the basic necessities of life.

Summary: The offense of criminal mistreatment in the first degree is ranked a seriousness level XII.

Votes on Final Passage:

Senate      48   0
House      94   0

Effective: June 12, 2008