A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to make an offense of vandalism that results in more than ten thousand dollars in damages a class I felony.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 14‑144 reads as rewritten:
"§ 14‑144.  Injuring houses, churches, fences and walls.
If any person shall, by any other means than burning or attempting to burn, unlawfully and willfully demolish, destroy, deface, injure or damage any of the houses or other buildings mentioned in this Chapter in the Article entitled Arson and Other Burnings; or shall by any other means than burning or attempting to burn unlawfully and willfully demolish, pull down, destroy, deface, damage or injure any church, uninhabited house, outhouse or other house or building not mentioned in such article; or shall unlawfully and willfully burn, destroy, pull down, injure or remove any fence, wall or other enclosure, or any part thereof, surrounding or about any yard, garden, cultivated field or pasture, or about any church or graveyard, or about any factory or other house in which machinery is used, every person so offending shall be punished as follows:
(1)	If the damage is ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or less, the person is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
(2)	If the damage is more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), the person is guilty of a Class I felony."
SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective December 1, 2007, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.