COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 400
(By Senators Kessler, Guills, Jenkins, Caruth,
Barnes and Plymale)
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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported February 22, 2007.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to providing for additional circuit
court judges to be appointed to the ninth, twenty-second,
twenty-fourth and thirtieth judicial circuits.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. CIRCUIT COURTS; CIRCUIT JUDGES.
§51-2-1. Judicial circuits; terms of office; legislative findings
and declarations; elections; terms of court.
(a) The state shall be divided into the following judicial
circuits with the following number of judges:
The counties of Brooke, Hancock and Ohio shall constitute the
first circuit and shall have four judges; the counties of Marshall,
Tyler and Wetzel shall constitute the second circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie shall
constitute the third circuit and shall have one judge; the counties
of Wood and Wirt shall constitute the fourth circuit and shall have
three judges; the counties of Calhoun, Jackson, Mason and Roane
shall constitute the fifth circuit and shall have two judges; the
county of Cabell shall constitute the sixth circuit and shall have
four judges; the county of Logan shall constitute the seventh
circuit and shall have two judges; the county of McDowell shall
constitute the eighth circuit and shall have two judges; the county
of Mercer shall constitute the ninth circuit and shall have two
judges;
Provided, That effective the first day of January, two
thousand eight, said circuit shall have three judges; the county of
Raleigh shall constitute the tenth circuit and shall have three
judges; the counties of Greenbrier and Pocahontas shall constitute
the eleventh circuit and shall have two judges; the county of
Fayette shall constitute the twelfth circuit and shall have two
judges; the county of Kanawha shall constitute the thirteenth
circuit and shall have seven judges; the counties of Braxton, Clay,
Gilmer and Webster shall constitute the fourteenth circuit and
shall have two judges; the county of Harrison shall constitute the
fifteenth circuit and shall have three judges; the county of Marion
shall constitute the sixteenth circuit and shall have two judges;
the county of Monongalia shall constitute the seventeenth circuit
and shall have two judges; the county of Preston shall constitute
the eighteenth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of
Barbour and Taylor shall constitute the nineteenth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Randolph shall constitute the
twentieth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Grant,
Mineral and Tucker shall constitute the twenty-first circuit and
shall have two judges; the counties of Hampshire, Hardy and
Pendleton shall constitute the twenty-second circuit and shall have
one judge;
Provided however, That effective the first day of
January, two thousand eight, said circuit shall have two judges;
the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan shall constitute the
twenty-third circuit and shall have five judges; the county of
Wayne shall constitute the twenty-fourth circuit and shall have one
judge;
Provided further, That effective the first day of January,
two thousand eight, said circuit shall have two judges; the
counties of Lincoln and Boone shall constitute the twenty-fifth
circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of Lewis and Upshur
shall constitute the twenty-sixth circuit and shall have one judge;
the county of Wyoming shall constitute the twenty-seventh circuit
and shall have one judge; the county of Nicholas shall constitute
the twenty-eighth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of
Putnam shall constitute the twenty-ninth circuit and shall have two
judges; the county of Mingo shall constitute the thirtieth circuit
and shall have one judge;
And provided further, That effective the
first day of January, two thousand eight, said circuit shall have
three judges; and the counties of Monroe and Summers shall
constitute the thirty-first circuit and shall have one judge;
Provided, however,
And provided further, That the Kanawha County
circuit court shall be a court of concurrent jurisdiction with each single judge circuit where the sitting judge in such single judge
circuit is unavailable by reason of sickness, vacation or other
reason.
(b) Any judge in office on the effective date of the
reenactment of this section shall continue as a judge of the
circuit as constituted under prior enactments of this section,
unless sooner removed or retired as provided by law, until the
thirty-first day of December, two thousand.
(c) The term of office of all circuit court judges shall be
for eight years. The term of office for all circuit court judges
elected during the general election conducted in the year two
thousand shall commence on the first day of January, two thousand
one, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two thousand
eight.
(d) Beginning with the primary and general elections to be
conducted in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety-two, in all
judicial circuits having two or more judges there shall be, for
election purposes, numbered divisions corresponding to the number
of circuit judges in each circuit. Each judge shall be elected at
large from the entire circuit. In each numbered division of a
judicial circuit, the candidates for nomination or election shall
be voted upon and the votes cast for the candidates in each
division shall be tallied separately from the votes cast for
candidates in other numbered divisions within the circuit. The
candidate receiving the highest number of the votes cast within a
numbered division shall be nominated or elected, as the case may be;
Provided, That beginning with the primary and general elections
to be conducted in the year two thousand, judges serving a judicial
circuit comprised of four or more counties with two or more judges
shall not be residents of the same county.
(e) The Supreme Court of Appeals shall, by rule, establish the
terms of court of circuit judges.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to create additional
circuit judgeships consistent with recommendations from the
National Center for State Courts.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.