Division of Criminal Justice Services

Current Summary of Changes to the Coded Law File

Law File Changes - August 8, 2018

Chapter 55 Part NN of the laws of 2018 – Renamed Penal Law §135.60 from coercion in the second degree to coercion in the third degree and added a new §135.61 as coercion in the second degree. The elements of the new crime are committing coercion in the third degree by compelling or inducing a person to engage in sexual activity, effective November 1, 2018.

Chapter 59 Part WWW of the laws of 2018 - Effective October 1, 2018, the age of criminal responsibility in New York is raised to 17.  The age of criminal responsibility will rise to 18 effective October 1, 2019. As of October 1, 2018, a 16-year-old defendant charged with a felony will be an Adolescent Offender (AO) who will remain responsible for that felony unless the case is removed to Family Court and the individual becomes a Juvenile Delinquent (JD). An AO offense is fingerprintable.  A 16-year-old is also criminally responsible for, and may be fingerprinted, when authorized, for a Vehicle and Traffic Law (VTL) misdemeanor and for violations and traffic infractions.  A 16-year-old charged with any misdemeanor, other than a VTL misdemeanor, will commence as a JD and will not be fingerprintable. In order to implement this legislation, DCJS has created two new fields in the coded law file for determining whether fingerprints should be accepted.  These fields are “RTA FP Offense” and “AO Indicator”.

Law File Changes:

Added new ordinals 8582 and 8583, per Chapter 55 of the Laws of 2018

Ordinal 7891 was repealed effective 10/31/2018.

Archive of Changes: