18.2-79 - Burning or destroying meeting house, etc. - Virginia Statutes

§ 18.2-79. Burning or destroying meeting house, etc.

If any person maliciously burns, or by the use of any explosive device orsubstance, maliciously destroys, in whole or in part, or causes to be burnedor destroyed, or aids, counsels, or procures the burning or destroying, ofany meeting house, courthouse, townhouse, college, academy, schoolhouse, orother building erected for public use except an asylum, hotel, jail, prisonor church or building owned or leased by a church that is immediatelyadjacent to a church, or any banking house, warehouse, storehouse,manufactory, mill, or other house, whether the property of himself or ofanother person, not usually occupied by persons lodging therein at night, ata time when any person is therein, or if he maliciously sets fire toanything, or causes to be set on fire, or aids, counsels, or procures thesetting on fire of anything, by the burning whereof any building mentioned inthis section is burned, at a time when any person is therein, he shall beguilty of a Class 3 felony. If such offense is committed when no person is insuch building mentioned in this section, the offender shall be guilty of aClass 4 felony.

(Code 1950, § 18.1-78; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1997, c. 832.)