GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
1989 SESSION
CHAPTER 694
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1. G.S. 14-17 reads as rewritten:
"§ 14-17. Murder in the first and second degree defined; punishment.
A murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, lying
in wait, imprisonment, starving, torture, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate,
and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration or
attempted perpetration of any arson, rape or a sex offense, robbery,
kidnapping, burglary, or other felony committed or attempted with the use of a
deadly weapon shall be deemed to be murder in the first degree, and any person
who commits such murder shall be punished with death or imprisonment in the
State's prison for life as the court shall determine pursuant to G.S. 15A-2000,
except that any such person who was under 17 years of age at the time of the
murder shall be punished with imprisonment in the State's prison for
life. Provided, however, any person under the age of 17 who commits
murder in the first degree while serving a prison sentence imposed for a prior
murder or while on escape from a prison sentence imposed for a prior murder
shall be punished with death or imprisonment in the State's prison for life as
the court shall determine pursuant to G.S. 15A-2000. All other kinds of
murder, including that which shall be proximately caused by the unlawful
distribution of opium or any synthetic or natural salt, compound, derivative,
or preparation of opium opium, or cocaine or other substance
described in G.S. 90-90(a)4., when the ingestion of such substance causes
the death of the user, shall be deemed murder in the second degree, and any
person who commits such murder shall be punished as a Class C felon."
Sec. 2. This act shall become effective October 1, 1989, and shall apply to offenses occurring on or after that date.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 28th day of July, 1989.