ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 400
(Senators Kessler, Guills, Jenkins, Caruth,
Barnes and Plymale, original sponsors)
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[Passed March 10, 2007;
in effect ninety days from passage.]
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AN ACT to amend and reenact §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to providing for six additional
circuit court judges.
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 nine, 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:
Provided,
however, That
effective the first day of January, two thousand nine, said circuit
shall have eight 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:
Provided further, That effective the first
day of January, two thousand nine, said circuit shall have three
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:
And
provided further, That effective the first day of January, two
thousand nine, 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:
And
provided further, That effective the first day of January, two
thousand nine, 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 nine, said circuit shall have
two judges; and the counties of Monroe and Summers shall constitute
the thirty-first circuit and shall have one judge. 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 eight. Any additional
judicial positions which have been added to individual circuits,
effective the first day of January, two thousand nine, shall be
placed on ballot for the primary and general elections conducted in
the year two thousand eight.
(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. The term of office for all circuit court judges elected
during the general election conducted in the year two thousand
eight shall commence on the first day of January, two thousand
nine, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two thousand
sixteen.
(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.