ENGROSSED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 600
(By Senators Chafin, Plymale, Bailey, Yoder,
Jenkins, Helmick and Hunter)
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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported March 24, 2005.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §62-3-21 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to requiring prosecuting attorneys
to show cause why incarcerated defendants should not be
released on bond at beginning of a new term of court.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §62-3-21 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3. TRIAL OF CRIMINAL CASES.
§62-3-21. Discharge for failure to try within certain time;
requiring prosecutors to show cause why bail should not be
reduced.
(a) Every person charged by presentment or indictment with a
felony or misdemeanor, and remanded to a court of competent
jurisdiction for trial, shall be forever discharged from
prosecution for the offense, if there be three regular terms of
such court, after the presentment is made or the indictment is
found against him
or her, without a trial, unless the failure to try him
or her was caused by his
or her insanity; or by the
witnesses for the state being enticed or kept away, or prevented
from attending by sickness or inevitable accident; or by a
continuance granted on the motion of the accused; or by reason of
his
or her escaping from jail, or failing to appear according to
his
or her recognizance, or of the inability of the jury to agree
in their verdict; and every person charged with a misdemeanor
before a
justice of the peace magistrate, city police judge or any
other inferior tribunal and who has therein been found guilty and
has appealed his
or her conviction of guilt and sentence to a court
of record, shall be forever discharged from further prosecution for
the offense set forth in the warrant against him
or her, if after
his him or her having appealed such conviction and sentence, there
be three regular terms of such court without a trial, unless the
failure to try him
or her was for one of the causes hereinabove set
forth relating to proceedings on indictment.
(b) Every defendant incarcerated while awaiting trial for whom
bail has been previously set shall be entitled at his or her
request to a hearing at the beginning of each term of court in
which he or she is incarcerated at which the State shall be
required to show cause why the defendant should not be released on
a personal recognizance bond or to bond with home incarceration as
a condition thereof.
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