WEST VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE

2023 REGULAR SESSION

Introduced

House Bill 2816

By Delegates Nestor, Hott, Kirby, Honaker, Forsht, Riley, Adkins, C. Pritt, Vance, Coop-Gonzalez, and Warner

[Introduced January 19, 2023; Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary]

A BILL to amend and reenact §8-11-1 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to ensuring that municipal officers adhere to the Model Rules of Judicial Conduct, to provide a means by which the integrity of the judicial system of the state is preserved, and to ensure that the constitutional rights of all people will be adequately protected by all courts of this state.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

Article 11. POWERS AND DUTIES WITH RESPECT TO ORDINANCES AND ORDINANCE PROCEDURES.

§8-11-1. Ordinances to make municipal powers effective; penalties imposed under judgment of mayor or police court or municipal judge; right to injunctive relief; right to maintain action to collect fines; additional assessment of costs.

(a) To carry into effect the powers and authority conferred upon any municipality or its governing body by the provisions of this chapter, or any past or future act of the Legislature of this state, the governing body has plenary power and authority to:

(1) Make and pass all needful ordinances, orders, bylaws, acts, resolutions, rules and regulations not contrary to the Constitution and laws of this state; and

(2) Prescribe reasonable penalties for violation of its ordinances, orders, bylaws, acts, resolutions, rules and regulations, in the form of fines, forfeitures and confinement in the county or regional jail or the place of confinement in the municipality, if there is one, for a term not exceeding 30 days.

(b) The fines, forfeitures and confinement shall be recovered, imposed or enforced under the judgment of the mayor of the municipality or the individual lawfully exercising the mayor’s functions, or the police court judge or municipal court judge of a city, if there is one, and may be suspended upon reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the mayor, other authorized individual or judge.

(c) Any mayor, any individual exercising the mayor’s functions, any police court judge, or any municipal judge of a city who may engage in the exacting of fines, the levying of forfeitures, or who may order the incarceration of persons for violations of the municipality’s ordinances, orders, bylaws, acts, resolutions, rules or regulations shall conform to the Model Rules of Judicial Conduct as set forth by the Supreme Court of Appeals of this state.

(c) (d) Any municipality may also maintain a civil action in the name of the municipality in the circuit court of the county in which the municipality or the major portion of the territory of the municipality is located to obtain an injunction to compel compliance with, or to enjoin a violation or threatened violation of, any ordinance of the municipality, and the circuit court has jurisdiction to grant the relief sought. A certified transcript of a judgment for a fine rendered by a municipal court may be filed in the office of the clerk of a circuit court and docketed in the judgment lien book kept in the office of the clerk of the county commission in the same manner and with the same effect as the filing and docketing of a certified transcript of judgment rendered by a magistrate court as provided for in §50-6-2 of this code. The judgment shall include costs assessed against the defendant.

(d) (e) In addition to any other costs which may be lawfully imposed, an additional cost shall be imposed in an amount of not less than $42 for a traffic offense constituting a moving violation, regardless of whether the penalty for the violation provides for a period of incarceration, and for any other offense for which the ordinance prescribing the offense provides for a period of incarceration. Of the $42 imposed as an additional cost, $2 are administrative costs to be retained by the municipality, and $40 shall be paid into the regional jail and correctional facility development fund in the State Treasury in accordance with section one-a of this article.

(e) (f)  Execution shall be by fieri facias issued by the clerk of the circuit court in the same manner as writs are issued on judgments for a fine rendered by circuit courts or other courts of record under the provisions of §62-4-11 of this code.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to add language mandating that any judgment by a mayor, any individual exercising the mayor’s functions, the police court judge, or municipal judge of city be obligated to the Model Rules of Judicial Conduct.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.