For 1st time, WV House passes bill to explicitly outlaw sexual contact with animals

The bill also specifies that any person convicted of an animal abuse charge can be barred from owning or living in a home with an animal for five years to life for a misdemeanor charge and 15 years to life for a felony charge. Current statute only bars ownership up to five years or 15 years for misdemeanors and felonies, respectively.

The bill passed the House 93-1, with five members absent and not voting. Delegate Dave Foggin, R-Wood, was the only no vote on the bill. He did not share any thoughts regarding HB 4725 during the discussion on the floor.

Members of the House adopted an amendment to the bill on Thursday that makes any person who has sexual contact with an animal face felony charges. If found guilty, the person would serve between one and five years in prison and pay a $1,000 to $5,000 fine.

Young: Police have been asking for this for years

State law currently does not include language that specifically outlaws sexual contact with an animal. 

Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, initially introduced an amendment that would have added the outlawing of sexual contact with animals into the state’s animal cruelty statutes on Wednesday. The amendment was not considered then, and instead House Bill 4725 was advanced to third reading with the right to amend on Thursday.

Young said that she introduced the amendment after years of hearing requests from police officers for her to introduce a bill that would add sexual contact with an animal to the state’s criminal code.

“I’ve been putting this bill forward, and now this amendment forward, for several years. I get a call from Charleston Police probably once every couple of months about prosecutors [who] drop these cases. Recently, I saw a policeman and he stopped me and begged me to introduce the bill again,” Young said. “So I saw an opportunity to do it in this bill, and yes, we would be the 50th state that would ban this explicitly in code.”

Delegate J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, is the lead sponsor of HB 4725. He said the bill started as an attempt to make a few “simple” changes to the state’s animal cruelty laws. He criticized Young’s amendment as an attempt to “turn this bill into something else” and called it “unnecessary” since sexual contact with animals is already illegal in the state, even though he acknowledged that it’s not currently explicitly outlawed in code.

“I have no idea as to why this kind of thing even has to be discussed as to whether it’s legal or not because it’s so morally wrong that you would think no one would do it in the first place. But I want to be clear that in West Virginia, [sexual contact with an animal] is already illegal,” Akers said. “Under our animal cruelty statute, any reasonable person would agree that it’s cruel to treat an animal in that way and commit that type of misconduct.”

Akers said he knows that people in West Virginia have been prosecuted for having sexual conduct with an animal and did not believe that prosecutors were dropping cases due to the lack of specific code. If any have, he continued, then “shame on [them].”

Akers: Proposed amendment makes us 'look ridiculous'

Akers said Young’s proposed amendment makes West Virginians “look ridiculous because it’s already a crime.” He said that he’s been angry for years about “out-of-state special interest groups” using West Virginia as a “punching bag” over the fact that the state code does not explicitly prohibit sexual contact with an animal while every other state in the country does.

Initially, he said, he considered only standing up to speak against Young’s amendment due to it being “unnecessary.” He changed his mind on Thursday, though, and decided instead to introduce his own amendment to ban sexual contact with an animal in order to “finally drive a stake through the heart of this ridiculous and insulting narrative.”

“It is illegal,” Akers said. “I guess we’re going to make it extra illegal today. That’s fine.”

In response, Young moved to withdraw her amendment and asked to be added as a cosponsor to Akers’ amendment as it “accomplishes the goal, which is to make sure that [sexual contact with animals] a crime.”

“I don’t want to deal with this on the [House] floor either,” Young said, “but the only way to get something into law is by going through the Legislature.”

Lawmakers adopted Akers’ and Young’s amendment via voice vote.

HB 4725 will now be introduced and considered by the state Senate.