CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The House of Delegates gave unanimous approval to a Senate bill Monday that would strengthen penalties for certain crimes including first-degree murder with mercy.
The measure, SB 137, increases the prison sentence for a second degree murder conviction from the current 10 to 40 years in prison to 15 to 60 years. Voluntary manslaughter would go from the current 3 to 15 years to 5 to 25 years.
House Minority Leader Del. Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, voted for the bill but also warned of the increasing cost to the state of longer prison sentences.
“Proceed with caution,” Hornbuckle said. “This is a very costly bill.”
Hornbuckle said the state’s prison costs went up by $75 million in 2024-2025. He said it keeps rising.
The bill also deals with first degree murder with mercy. It raises the minimum time served to be eligible for parole to 25 years from the current standard of 15 years.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, said the idea for some of the bill came from crime victims and their families.
“The focus of this bill in terms of the increases of the parole eligiblity hearings is victim-centric,” Akers said. “Many times we just don’t talk about the victims at all.”
Kanawha County Commission President Ben Salango is a vocal proponent of the legislation, invoking his personal experience of watching his wife’s family attend parole hearings for the man convicted of murdering her brother.
“We’ve shown up at parole hearing after parole hearing to try to keep the murderer, who was convicted of premeditated, intentional first-degree murder, to try to keep him in prison,” he said.
Salango’s wife, Kanawha County Circuit Judge Tera Salango, said her first experience with the legal system was the two trials of Dale Guthrie, the man convicted of killing her brother, Stephen Todd Farley, in 1993. Ben Salango detailed the anguish he sees each time they go in for a parole hearing and said his family is not alone. The time for murder with mercy was 10 years to life at the time of that conviction.\
“A lot of people have to go through this if there’s no chance that the person’s going to get out, yet they still have to appear every one to three years for these parole hearings, and it is absolutely heartbreaking and gut-wrenching to these families to have to live it over and over again,” Salango said.
Bills were introduced in both chambers of the legislature regarding penalties for murder convictions and the provision increasing the minimum time served for first-degree murder was added as part of a committee substitute to SB 137 which was introduced to increase sentences for second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
“On the House side, they proposed a bill, it’s called Todd’s Law, that was named after my brother-in-law, Todd Farley, and then also on the Senate side, SB 137. The Senate passed Senate Bill 137. It went over to the House. It’s the House bill that made some revisions. They added Todd’s Law to Senate Bill 137,” Salango said.
Salango said that his desire to see the sentence increased for first-degree murder convictions goes beyond just his own personal experience. In researching the law, he said he found instances of convicts being released at their first opportunity for parole.
“I went through the records and it’s happened where someone will intentionally kill somebody and they get out after 15 years. It’s shocking to me. Primarily, that doesn’t happen but it has so we’ve got to fix that. It shouldn’t be some kind of discretionary thing just because they were a good boy in prison that somehow the parole board’s going to let them out. You have to pay for that crime,” he said.
The bill that passed Monday goes back to the Senate to see if senators agree with changes the House made to the bill.
MetroNews reporter Jeff Jenkins contributed to this story.