HB283: establishing the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent resulting in death or serious bodily harm.

HB 283-FN - AS INTRODUCED

2003 SESSION

03-0444

04/01

HOUSE BILL 283-FN

AN ACT establishing the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent resulting in death or serious bodily harm.

SPONSORS: Rep. Ouellette Merr 33; Rep. Luebkert, Hills 54; Rep. Batchelder, Ches 24

COMMITTEE: Criminal Justice and Public Safety

ANALYSIS

This bill creates a class A felony for endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent person which results in death or serious bodily harm to such child or incompetent person.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.

Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

03-0444

04/01

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Three

AN ACT establishing the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent resulting in death or serious bodily harm.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1 Endangering the Welfare of a Child or Incompetent; Penalties. Amend RSA 639:3, V to read as follows:

V.(a) A person who endangers the welfare of a child or incompetent by violating paragraph III of this section [is] shall be guilty of a class B felony.

(b) A person who endangers the welfare of a child or incompetent which results in death or serious bodily harm to such child or incompetent shall be guilty of a class A felony.

(c) All other violations of this section are misdemeanors.

2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect January 1, 2004.

LBAO

03-0444

1/10/03

HB 283-FN - FISCAL NOTE

AN ACT establishing the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child or incompetent resulting in death or serious bodily harm.

FISCAL IMPACT:

The Judicial Branch, Judicial Council, and Departments of Corrections and Justice determined this bill may increase state expenditures by an indeterminable amount in FY 2004 and each year thereafter. There will be no fiscal impact on county and local revenue or expenditures.

METHODOLOGY:

The Judicial Branch stated this bill will make endangering the welfare of a child or an incompetent person a class A felony if the endangerment results in death or serious bodily harm. Under current law, all endangering the welfare of a child cases are misdemeanors, unless certain sexual conduct is involved, in which case it is a class B felony. Since class A felonies usually result in a jury trial, the cost to the judicial branch for each prosecution under the statute would substantially increase over current misdemeanor prosecutions in the district court. Without knowing how many prosecutions would be affected by this change, the Branch cannot prepare a detailed estimate of the fiscal impact.

The Judicial Council stated it is not possible to predict the number of cases that may result from the enactment of this bill, which provides for a new class A misdemeanor where previously the statute merely provided for a misdemeanor charge; it is likewise not possible to place an exact dollar figure on the potential costs associated with the enactment of this bill. If the case is handled by either the public defender or contract attorneys, both of whom are paid at the flat fee rate of $687.50 per felony, the impact will not be financial in a direct sense. Rather, the capacity of either delivery program will be significantly reduced by the amount of time which must be committed to such serious cases. This may result in a diminished capacity of these two programs to accept as many other cases since the time spent on cases is what determines the caseload capacity of each of these programs. It is also more difficult to quantify the cost of these extended jail terms. It is likely that as a result of the increased time committed to handling of these cases that more cases may have to be assigned to the third tier of the delivery system, assigned counsel. It depends on how may cases arise. If the cases were handled in the first

LBAO

03-0444

1/10/03

Page 2

instance by assigned counsel, the direct costs would be more obvious. The additional time required for these cases simply will be billed at the $60 per hour rate. It is more likely that these cases would exceed the $3,000 felony fee cap more rapidly. Generally, due to the complexity of these cases, there would a greater need for "services other than counsel".

The Department of Corrections estimates no more than one conviction per year resulting from this bill. The average cost of incarceration is $24,866 per inmate, per year. The average marginal cost is $8,000 per inmate, per year. This legislation would affect marginal costs initially.

The Department of Justice stated costs of litigation, exclusive of man-hours, involves such things as the production of documents, research, travel, etc. In FY 2002, these litigation costs averaged $2,388 for civil cases and $1,351 for criminal cases. The personnel costs of litigation can be measured in terms of overtime for the support staff and additional caseloads for attorneys. In addition, any increase to the number of complaints to this agency will increase both the workload and the priority in which they are handled. The Department cannot, with any degree of certainty, project the number of instances in which they will be required to defend the State for the imposition of this new law. Because they cannot predict the number of instances, the Department cannot estimate a cost. However, if the bill becomes law, both the workload and the litigation cost to this Department will increase.