FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 255

92ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES CRAWFORD, STEVENSON, QUINN, SHOEMAKER (8),

 MILLER, SCHNEIDER, PARKER, CARNAHAN, MUCKLER, BARNITZ, RUPP, BRUNS, BEAN,

 BISHOP, FRASER (Co-sponsors), MOORE, DEMPSEY, BLACK AND SUTHERLAND.

         Read 1^st time January 23, 2003, and copies ordered printed.

STEPHEN S. DAVIS, Chief Clerk

0989L.01I

AN ACT

To repeal section 565.020, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to offenses against the person, with penalty provisions.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

            Section A. Section 565.020, RSMo, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 565.020, to read as follows:

            565.020. 1. A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if he knowingly causes the death of another person after deliberation upon the matter.

            2. Murder in the first degree is a class A felony, and the punishment shall be either death or imprisonment for life without eligibility for probation or parole, or release except by act of the governor; except that, if a person has not reached his [sixteenth] eighteenth birthday at the time of the commission of the crime, the punishment shall be imprisonment for life without eligibility for probation or parole, or release except by act of the governor.