05-02-2025
ND House bill would enhance some reckless endangerment charges, change habitual offender requirements
Feb. 4—BISMARCK — By changing how the state classifies habitual offenders and enhancing the potential penalties for reckless endangerment crimes involving firearms, Sen. Jonathan Sickler hopes to give judges more flexibility to sentence the most dangerous offenders to longer prison terms.
Sickler, R-Grand Forks, said the bill has two parts. First, it would elevate reckless endangerment-extreme indifference from a Class C felony to a Class B felony in certain circumstances. An amendment later offered by Rep. Lawrence R. Klemin, R-Bismarck, who was the first to get involved with the bill, limited this enhancement to reckless endangerment involving the discharge of a firearm.
"They're seeing people in bars (or hotels or apartments) in some parts of the state firing a weapon," Sickler said. "They may not necessarily have the intent element to get it an attempted murder kind of charge, but on the extreme indifference? It would meet that. So that would elevate that to a Class B."
The second part of the bill, which he believes will likely be more impactful, would change how the state classifies habitual offenders. As it stands, a defendant can be designated as a habitual offender based on the potential penalties they faced for prior convictions — for example, if they faced up to five years in prison, which would be a Class C felony in North Dakota.
Other states have different sentencing lengths for different crimes; it is not a uniform system. There are times when someone would meet the definition of a habitual offender under North Dakota's criminal definitions but doesn't because their state doesn't carry the necessary sentence length for a given crime.
"That's where the issue with the other states comes in, that their Class C felonies don't match up potential prison times with our Class C felonies," Sickler said. "So this bill will just make it just felonies. So if you repeatedly commit felonies, whether in North Dakota or other states, that could make you eligible for a judge to determine that you're a habitual offender who could be subject to extra person time."
One of the main topics of this legislative session is how to deal with increasing crime rates and overcrowding in correctional facilities, trying to strike a balance between keeping the right people in jail and not incurring unsustainable costs by incarcerating people, he said.
HB 1225 was given a "do pass" recommendation — with the firearm discharge amendment — Wednesday, Jan. 29, and has been re-referred to the appropriations committee. The state fiscal effect, according to a fiscal note filed prior to the amendments, was listed as $13,618,039.
