West Virginia governor signs law removing marital assault exemption

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Certain sexual assaults against a spouse will now be criminalized in West Virginia for the first time under a law signed by Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The law, signed Friday, removes marriage as a defense to first- and third-degree sexual assault. Until 1976, a married person couldn’t be charged with penetrative rape of their spouse. That law was changed at the urging of the then-Republican Sen. Judith Herndon, at the time the only woman in the Legislature. The bill’s sponsor, GOP Sen. Ryan Weld of Brooke County, says there are two crimes of sexual violence outlined in state code: penetrative rape, and secondly, the forcible touching of a person’s sexual organs, breasts, buttocks or anus by another person.