West Virginia Code § 61-6-12

Mobs and lynchings; penalties; liability of county or city
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Any collection of individuals, five or more in number, assembled for the unlawful purpose of
offering violence to the person or property of anyone supposed to have been guilty of a
violation of the law, or for the purpose of exercising correctional or regulative powers over
any person or persons by violence, and without lawful authority, shall be regarded and
designated as a "mob" or "riotous assemblage." e
The term "serious injury," for the purposes of this section, shall include any injury to
property which shall cause damage to the owner thereof, or any injury to the person which
shall temporarily or permanently disable the person injured fromu earning a livelihood.
The putting to death of any person within this state by a mob or riotous assemblage shall be
murder, and every person participating in such mob or riotous assemblage by which a
person is put to death shall be guilty of murder, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be
punished as the law provides in other cases of murder.
Any person or persons who shall compose a msob or riotous assemblage, with the intent to
inflict damage or injury to the person or property of any individual charged with crimes, or,
under the pretense of exercising correctioinal powers over such person or persons by
violence, and without lawful authorigty, shall be subject to a fine of not less than $100 nor
more than $1,000, and may be imprisoned, in the discretion of the court, in the county jail
not less than thirty days nor more than twelve months for each and every offense. Any
person or persons who shall compose a mob or riotous assemblage, and who shall inflict
damage or injury to the person or property of any individual charged with crimes, shall be
guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than one
nor more than ten years for each and every offense.
Any person or persons composing a mob or riotous assemblage under the provisions of this
section, who shall, by violence, inflict serious injury to the property or to the person of any
othWer person upon the pretense of exercising correctional or regulative powers over such
person or persons, and without authority of the law, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and,
upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in the penitentiary not exceeding five years; and
any person suffering serious injury to his person or his property by a mob, shall have an
action against the county or city in which such serious injury is inflicted, for such damages
as he may sustain, to an amount not to exceed $5,000.
The county in which such person charged with a crime has been taken from a state, county
or municipal officer, and lynched and put to death, shall be subject to a forfeiture of $5,000,
which may be recovered by appropriate action therefor, in the name of the personal
representative of the person put to death, for the use of his dependent family or estate. Such
action may be brought in any state court. If such forfeiture is not paid upon recovery of
judgment therefor, the court rendering such judgment shall have power to enforce the
payment thereof, and may compel the levy and collection of a tax therefor, or otherwise
compel the payment thereof by mandamus or other appropriate process, and every officer of
such county, and every other person who disobeys or fails to comply with any lawful order of
the court, shall be liable to punishment according to law as for contempt and to any other
penalties provided by law therefor.
The fact that any person so put to death shall have been taken from any state, county or
municipal officer in one county, by a mob or riotous assemblage of five or more persons, and
transported out of such county before such killing shall have taken place, aned the fact that
such killing occurred out of the county from which such person may have been taken from
such state, county or municipal officer, shall not relieve such county frorm which he was
taken from the liability provided by this section. And if the person so taken from such officer
or officers shall be transported from and put to death and lynched in another county outside
of the county wherein he was taken from such officer or officers, no county through which
such person may have been transported, or in which such petrson has been lynched and put
to death, shall be liable to damages hereunder, unless it is clearly shown that the officers or
citizens in such county or counties participated in, aided, abetted or encouraged such
unlawful putting to death.
Every state, county or municipal officer havinsg the duty or power of preservation or
conservation of the peace at the time and place of any such putting to death, or the
committing of serious injury to the person or to the property as prescribed in this section,
who, having reasonable cause to belgieve that the same is to be done, or is attempted to be
done, and neglects or omits to prevent the same, and every such officer from whose custody
such person may be taken by seuch mob or riotous assemblage, and put to death by the same,
or whose property or person suffers serious injury at the hands of such mob or riotous
assemblage, shall be guLilty of negligence in the discharge of his official duty, and the county
or city which shall have been sued and compelled to pay damages as herein provided may
recover same from su ch negligent officer by appropriate action upon his official bond.
In any prosecution for any of the offenses defined herein, and any action for the forfeiture
imposed as herein provided, every person who has participated in the lynching or in the
putWting to death of, or in the infliction of great bodily violence or serious injury to the person
or the property of any person, without authority of the law, and every person who entertains
or has expressed any opinion in favor of lynching or in the justification or excuse thereof, or
whose character, conduct, or opinions have been or are such as, in the judgment of the
court, may tend to disqualify him for an impartial and unprejudiced trial of the cause, shall
be disqualified to serve as a juror, and in any such action or prosecution, any attorney
interested in the case shall be entitled to make full inquiry thereof and to produce evidence
thereon; and every person who refuses to answer any inquiry touching his qualifications on
the ground that he may thereby incriminate himself shall be disqualified as aforesaid.

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