West Virginia Code 17A-8-12 – Recovery of special mobile equipment; chain of custody; sale of unclaimed special mobile equipment; penalties
(a) When an item of special mobile equipment has been lawfully seized and remains in the custody of the law- enforcement authority having seized it, if at any time the true owner thereof shall appear and prove to the satisfaction of such law-enforcement authority his ownership of and entitlement to such item of special mobile equipment, it may be returned to such owner subject to its being made available for use in any criminal prosecution under this article.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 17A-8-12
- Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
- Manufacturer: means every person engaged in the business of constructing or assembling vehicles of a type required to be registered hereunder at a place of business in this state which is actually occupied either continuously or at regular periods by the manufacturer where his or her books and records are kept and a large share of his or her business is transacted. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Mobile equipment: means every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property over the highway but which may infrequently or incidentally travel over the highways among job sites, equipment storage sites, or repair sites, including farm equipment, implements of husbandry, well drillers, cranes, and wood-sawing equipment. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Owner: means a person who holds the legal title to a vehicle, or in the event a vehicle is the subject of an agreement for the conditional sale or lease thereof with the right of purchase upon performance of the conditions stated in the agreement and with an immediate right of possession vested in the conditional vendee or lessee, or in the event a mortgagor of a vehicle is entitled to possession, then the conditional vendee or lessee or mortgagor shall be considered the owner for the purpose of this chapter. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Person: means every natural person, firm, copartnership, association, or corporation. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
- Special mobile equipment: means every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including, without limitation, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, stone crushers, air compressors, power shovels, graders, rollers, well drillers, wood-sawing equipment, asphalt spreaders, bituminous mixers, bucket loaders, ditchers, leveling graders, finishing machines, motor graders, road rollers, scarifiers, earth-moving carryalls, scrapers, drag lines, rock-drilling equipment, and earth-moving equipment. See West Virginia Code 17A-1-1
(b) The law-enforcement authority shall take reasonable steps to locate the owner, including, but not limited to, notifying local equipment dealer, notifying equipment manufacturer and placing legal advertisements detailing confiscated equipment in newspapers. The law-enforcement authority shall take reasonable precautions to protect the equipment. The owner of the special mobile equipment shall pay the costs incurred by the law-enforcement authority for advertising, transporting and storing such special mobile equipment.
(c) If, after six months, no person has appeared and proved he is the true owner of an item of special mobile equipment seized under this article and prosecution has been instituted, the court in which such prosecution has been instituted may sell said item of special mobile equipment under such terms as are commercially reasonable: Provided, That notice of sale shall be published as a Class I legal advertisement in compliance with the provisions of article three, chapter fifty-nine of this code, and the publication area shall be the county in which such prosecution was initially instituted. The proceeds of such sale shall be applied, first, to the payment of any expenses incurred in taking possession, storing and selling such special mobile equipment; and the balance, if any, shall be paid over to the general receiver of the court in the county in which the prosecution was instituted for its application to that county's general revenues.
(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of article eleven of this chapter, any person convicted of a felony under the provisions of subsection (b), section six, subsection (b), section seven or subsection (b), section eight of this article shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years and fined not more than $500, or, in the discretion of the court, be confined in the county jail for not more than one year and be fined not more than $500.
Notwithstanding the provisions of article eleven of this chapter, any person convicted of a misdemeanor under the provisions of subsection (b), section six of this article shall be confined in the county jail for a term not to exceed one year or fined not more than $500, or both.