A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to increase the penalty for the malicious abuse, torture, or killing of an animal and to appropriate funds to the department of corrections to implement the act.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 14‑360(a1) reads as rewritten:
"(a1)	If any person shall maliciously kill, or cause or procure to be killed, any animal by intentional deprivation of necessary sustenance, that person shall be guilty of a  Class H felony."
SECTION 2.  G.S. 14‑360(b) reads as rewritten:
"(b)	If any person shall maliciously torture, mutilate, maim, cruelly beat, disfigure, poison, or kill, or cause or procure to be tortured, mutilated, maimed, cruelly beaten, disfigured, poisoned, or killed, any animal, every such offender shall for every such offense be guilty of a  Class H felony. However, nothing in this section shall be construed to increase the penalty for cockfighting provided for in G.S. 14‑362."
SECTION 3.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Corrections, the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) for the 2010‑2011 fiscal year to implement the provisions of this act.
SECTION 4.  This act becomes effective December 1, 2010, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.