The Senate Judiciary Committee met on Wednesday afternoon and advanced two bills regarding a multi-jurisdictional cold case task force within the State Police and limiting minors from accessing certain content.
House Bill 4799, known as the Leah Hickman Memorial Act, would establish a statewide Cold Case Task Force within the West Virginia State Police.
A cold case is defined as any investigation into a qualifying crime, a missing person, or unidentified human remains where all investigative leads have been exhausted, and the crime remains unsolved. Other definitions regarding the bill can be found in code: §15A-12-9.
The task force would focus on investigating and prosecuting unresolved cases and operate under an executive board made up of state and local law enforcement leaders.
This bill allows cooperation with federal, state, and local agencies, creates a dedicated fund to support operations, and requires data sharing through the West Virginia Fusion Center.
The bill was reported to the full Senate with a recommendation of passage.
House Bill 4412 would hold commercial websites and apps legally responsible if they allow minors to access pornography or other sexual material defined in the bill as harmful to minors.
If more than one-third of a site’s content includes sexual material harmful to minors, the site would be required to verify that users are 18 or older using, using a government ID, digital ID, or another approved age-verification system.
Companies would not be allowed to keep personal information collected only for age checks.
A parent, guardian, or other person legally allowed to act on behalf of a minor could sue the commercial website or app that publishes or distributes the material. If it fails to verify age or improperly keeps, uses, or shares personal information collected during the age-verification process.
Senator Ryan W. Weld (R – Brooke, 01) proposed a conceptual amendment that would add clean-up language and add child pornography under the cause of action section in the bill.
The amendment was adopted.
The bill, as amended, was reported to the full Senate with a recommendation of passage.
