HB 680-FN – AS INTRODUCED
2005 SESSION
09/04
HOUSE BILL 680-FN
AN ACT relative to witness tampering.
SPONSORS: Rep. Dumaine, Rock 3; Rep. Hagan, Hills 17; Rep. Cady, Rock 1; Rep. Itse, Rock 9
This bill expands the crime of witness tampering to include inducing a person to refuse to grant a criminal investigative official an interview and inducing a person who is under 16 years of age and the subject of a criminal investigation to answer questions in the course of the investigation without consent of such person’s parent or legal guardian.
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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Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
05-0595
09/04
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Five
AN ACT relative to witness tampering.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
1 Tampering With Witnesses. Amend RSA 641:5 to read as follows:
641:5 Tampering With Witnesses and Informants. A person is guilty of a class B felony if:
I. Believing that an official proceeding, as defined in RSA 641:1, II, or investigation is pending or about to be instituted, he or she attempts to induce or otherwise cause a person to:
(a) Testify or inform falsely; or
(b) Withhold any testimony, information, document, or thing; or
(c) Elude legal process summoning him or her to provide evidence; or
(d) Absent himself or herself from any proceeding or investigation to which he or she has been summoned; or
(e) Refuse to grant any criminal investigative official an interview, unless said refusal comes as a result of the person’s personal decision or the legal advice of a personal and retained attorney; or
(f) Answer any questions in a criminal investigation, if such person is under 16 years of age and is a suspect in said criminal investigation without first notifying and obtaining the consent of a parent or legal guardian, unless otherwise authorized under RSA 570-A:7.
II. He or she commits any unlawful act in retaliation for anything done by another in his or her capacity as witness or informant[; or].
III. He or she solicits, accepts or agrees to accept any benefit in consideration of his or her doing any of the things specified in paragraph I.
2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect January 1, 2006.
LBAO
05-0595
1/31/05
HB 680-FN - FISCAL NOTE
AN ACT relative to witness tampering.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The Judicial Branch, Judicial Council and Department of Corrections determined this bill will increase state expenditures by an indeterminable amount in FY 2006 and each year thereafter. There will be no fiscal impact on state, county and local revenue or county and local expenditures.
METHODOLOGY:
The Judicial Branch stated this bill would amend the witness tampering statute to add two new incidents of the offense. One is to induce a person to refuse to grant an interview to a criminal investigator. The other is to induce a suspect in a criminal investigation who is under sixteen to answer questions in the investigation without first notifying or obtaining the consent of a parent or guardian. The Judicial Branch has no information as to the number of additional felony cases that could result from these new forms of witness tampering. As currently constituted, the witness tampering statute yields about 120 charges annually in the superior court. Given that this is a class B felony, which can involve arraignment, bail, probable cause hearing in the district court, numerous hearings and jury trial in the superior court, and an appeal to the supreme court, the Branch stated this bill will result in an indeterminable increase in state expenditures. Any fiscal impact to the Branch will result in increased delays in the processing of other cases.
The Judicial Council stated the two new felony charges are likely to result in some new cases being brought. These are new charges so there is no historical data upon which to develop assumptions as to the potential fiscal impact of this bill. Therefore, the Judicial Council is unable to estimate the potential increase in state expenditures resulting from this bill. The Council assumed that the individual so charged has been determined to be indigent at which time the court will proceed to appoint an attorney to represent the defendant. If the public defender or contract attorney is appointed to the case, the fixed contract rate of $687.50 will apply to each felony B case so charged. If an assigned counsel attorney must be used due to either conflict of interest or for reasons of caseload limitations, the $60 per hour rate will apply to the case, with a fee cap of $3,000 per case. This fee cap may be waived upon motion filed in
LBAO
05-0595
1/31/05
advance with the court. If there are any “services other than counsel” filed as a necessary part of the defense of a case, they would also be a charge payable from indigent defense funds.
The Department of Justice stated that generally, these offenses are prosecuted by the counties, although on occasion the Department has brought a witness tampering charge as a part of a larger prosecution. It is unlikely the Department would prosecute more than two additional cases per year as a result of this bill, therefore, there would be no fiscal impact on the Department.
The Department of Corrections stated that since the Department is unable to determine the number of individuals that may be sentenced under this bill, they are unable to determine the potential increase in state expenditures. The average annual cost of incarcerating an individual in the general population for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2004 was $27,533.