H. B. 3182
(By Delegate Ashley)
[Introduced February 22, 2007; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary then Finance.]
A BILL to amend and reenact §29-21-13a of the Code of West
Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to increasing hourly fees
for court appointed lawyers appointed in criminal cases to
sixty dollars an hour for out-of-court time and eighty dollars
an hour for in-court time; and increasing hourly fees for
court-appointed lawyers in child abuse cases to seventy
dollars an hour for out-of-court time and ninety dollars an
hour for in-court time.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §29-21-13a of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 21. PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICES.
§29-21-13a. Compensation and expenses for panel attorneys.
(a) All panel attorneys shall maintain detailed and accurate
records of the time expended and expenses incurred on behalf of eligible clients, and upon completion of each case, exclusive of
appeal, shall submit to the appointing court a voucher for
services. Claims for fees and expense reimbursements shall be
submitted to the appointing court on forms approved by the
executive director. Claims submitted more than four years after
the last date of service shall be rejected.
The appointing court shall review the voucher to determine if
the time and expense claims are reasonable, necessary and valid,
and shall forward the voucher to the agency with an order approving
payment of the claimed amount or of a lesser sum the court
considers appropriate.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section to the
contrary, Public Defender Services may pay by direct bill, prior to
the completion of the case, litigation expenses incurred by
attorneys appointed under this article.
© Notwithstanding any other provision of this section to the
contrary, a panel attorney may be compensated for services rendered
and reimbursed for expenses incurred prior to the completion of the
case where: (1) More than six months have expired since the
commencement of the panel attorney's representation in the case;
and (2) no prior payment of attorney fees has been made to the
panel attorney by public defender services during the case. The
amounts of any fees or expenses paid to the panel attorney on an
interim basis, when combined with any amounts paid to the panel attorney at the conclusion of the case, shall not exceed the
limitations on fees and expenses imposed by this section.
(d) In each case in which a panel attorney provides legal
representation under this article, and in each appeal after
conviction in circuit court, the panel attorney shall be
compensated at the following rates for actual and necessary time
expended for services performed and expenses incurred subsequent to
the effective date of this article:
(1) For attorney's work performed out of court, compensation
shall be at the rate of forty-five sixty dollars per hour. For
paralegal's work performed out of court for the attorney,
compensation shall be at the rate of the paralegal's regular
compensation on an hourly basis or, if salaried, at the hourly rate
of compensation which would produce the paralegal's current salary,
but in no event shall the compensation exceed twenty dollars per
hour. Out-of-court work includes, but is not limited to, travel,
interviews of clients or witnesses, preparation of pleadings and
prehearing or pretrial research.
(2) For attorney's work performed in court, compensation shall
be at the rate of sixty-five eighty dollars per hour. No
compensation for paralegal's work performed in court shall be
allowed. In-court work includes, but is not limited to, all time
spent awaiting hearing or trial if the presence of the attorney is
required.
(3) The maximum amount of compensation for out-of-court and
in-court work under this subsection is as follows: For proceedings
of any kind involving felonies for which a penalty of life
imprisonment may be imposed, the amount as the court may approve;
for all other eligible proceedings, three thousand dollars unless
the court, for good cause shown, approves payment of a larger sum.
(4) Notwithstanding any provisions of this section to the
contrary, a panel attorney providing legal representation under
this article in cases relating to child abuse or dependent or
neglected children shall be compensated at the rate of seventy
dollars per hour for an attorney's work performed out-of-court and
ninety dollars per hour for an attorney's work performed in-court.
For the purposes of this subsection the terms child abuse and
dependent or neglected children mean any case arising under West
Virginia Code § 61-8D-1 et seq. and West Virginia Code § 49-6-1 et
seq.
(e) Actual and necessary expenses incurred in providing legal
representation for proceedings of any kind involving felonies for
which a penalty of life imprisonment may be imposed, including, but
not limited to, expenses for travel, transcripts, salaried or
contracted investigative services and expert witnesses, shall be
reimbursed in an amount as the court may approve. For all other
eligible proceedings, actual and necessary expenses incurred in
providing legal representation, including, but not limited to, expenses for travel, transcripts, salaried or contracted
investigative services and expert witnesses, shall be reimbursed to
a maximum of fifteen hundred dollars unless the court, for good
cause shown, approves reimbursement of a larger sum.
Expense vouchers shall specifically set forth the nature,
amount and purpose of expenses incurred and shall provide receipts,
invoices or other documentation required by the executive director
and the State Auditor:
(1)(A) Reimbursement of expenses for production of transcripts
of proceedings reported by a court reporter is limited to the cost
per original page set forth in section four, article seven, chapter
fifty-one of this code. Reimbursement of the cost of copies of
such transcripts is limited to the cost per copy page as provided
for under said section. It is the duty of the executive director
of public defender services to maintain computer records of all
transcripts, including originals and copies, for which payment has
been made.
(B)(i) There shall be no reimbursement of expenses for or
production of a transcript of a preliminary hearing before a
magistrate or juvenile referee, or of a magistrate court jury
trial, which has been reported by a court reporter at the request
of the attorney, where the preliminary hearing or jury trial has
also been recorded electronically in accordance with the provisions
of section eight, article five, chapter fifty of this code or court rule.
(ii) Reimbursement of the expense of an appearance fee for a
court reporter who reports a proceeding other than one described in
subparagraph (i) of this paragraph, or who reports a proceeding
which is not reported by an official court reporter acting in his
or her official capacity for the court, is limited to twenty-five
dollars. Where a transcript of a proceeding is produced, there
shall be no reimbursement for the expense of any appearance fee.
Where a transcript is requested by the attorney after an appearance
fee has been paid, reimbursement of the expense incurred to obtain
the transcript is limited to the cost of producing the transcript,
within the prescribed limitations of paragraph (A) of this
subdivision, less the amount of the paid appearance fee.
(iii) Reimbursement of travel expenses incurred for travel by
a court reporter is subject to the limitations provided by
subdivision (2) of this subsection.
(iv) Except for the appearance fees provided in this
paragraph, there shall be no reimbursement for hourly court
reporters' fees or fees for other time expended by the court
reporter, either at the proceeding or traveling to or from the
proceeding.
(c) Reimbursement of the cost of transcription of tapes
electronically recorded during preliminary hearings or magistrate
court jury trials is limited to the rates established by the Supreme Court of Appeals for the reimbursement of transcriptions of
electronically recorded hearings and trial.
(2) Reimbursement for any travel expense incurred in an
eligible proceeding is limited to the rates for the reimbursement
of travel expenses established by rules promulgated by the Governor
pursuant to the provisions of section eleven, article eight,
chapter twelve of this code and administered by the secretary of
the Department of Administration pursuant to the provisions of
section forty-eight, article three, chapter five-a of this code.
(3) Reimbursement for investigative services is limited to a
rate of thirty dollars per hour for work performed by an
investigator.
(f) For purposes of compensation under this section, an appeal
from a final order of the circuit court, or proceeding seeking an
extraordinary remedy, made to the Supreme Court of Appeals, shall
be considered a separate case.
(g) Vouchers submitted under this section shall specifically
set forth the nature of the service rendered, the stage of
proceeding or type of hearing involved, the date and place the
service was rendered and the amount of time expended in each
instance. All time claimed on the vouchers shall be itemized to
the nearest tenth of an hour. If the charge against the eligible
client for which services were rendered is one of several charges
involving multiple warrants or indictments, the voucher shall indicate the fact and sufficiently identify the several charges so
as to enable the court to avoid a duplication of compensation for
services rendered. The executive director shall refuse to
requisition payment for any voucher which is not in conformity with
the recordkeeping, compensation or other provisions of this article
and in such circumstance shall return the voucher to the court or
to the service provider for further review or correction.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to increase the rate of
compensation for court appointed counsel who are appointed in child
abuse and neglect cases to seventy dollars an hour for out-of-court
time and ninety dollars an hour for in-court time. For lawyers
appointed in criminal cases the increase would be to sixty dollars
an hour out-of-court and eighty dollars an hour in-court.
Currently all lawyers appointed in child abuse/neglected cases and
criminal cases are paid at the rate of forty-five dollars
out-of-court and sixty-five dollars an hour in-court.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.