ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 291
(Senators Helmick and Yoder, original sponsors)
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[Passed March 7, 2008; 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 authorizing an additional
circuit court judge to each of the ninth, twenty-second and
twenty-fourth 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:
(1) The counties of Brooke, Hancock and Ohio shall constitute
the first circuit and shall have four judges;
(2) The counties of Marshall, Tyler and Wetzel shall constitute the second circuit and shall have two judges;
(3) The counties of Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie shall
constitute the third circuit and shall have one judge;
(4) The counties of Wood and Wirt shall constitute the fourth
circuit and shall have three judges;
(5) The counties of Calhoun, Jackson, Mason and Roane shall
constitute the fifth circuit and shall have two judges;
(6) The county of Cabell shall constitute the sixth circuit
and shall have four judges;
(7) The county of Logan shall constitute the seventh circuit
and shall have two judges;
(8) The county of McDowell shall constitute the eighth circuit
and shall have two judges;
(9) The county of Mercer shall constitute the ninth circuit
and shall have two judges :
Provided, That effective the first day
of September, two thousand eight, said circuit shall have three
judges;
(10) The county of Raleigh shall constitute the tenth circuit
and shall have three judges;
(11) The counties of Greenbrier and Pocahontas shall
constitute the eleventh circuit and shall have two judges;
(12) The county of Fayette shall constitute the twelfth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(13) The county of Kanawha shall constitute the thirteenth
circuit and shall have seven judges;
(14) The counties of Braxton, Clay, Gilmer and Webster shall constitute the fourteenth circuit and shall have two judges;
(15) The county of Harrison shall constitute the fifteenth
circuit and shall have three judges;
(16) The county of Marion shall constitute the sixteenth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(17) The county of Monongalia shall constitute the seventeenth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(18) The county of Preston shall constitute the eighteenth
circuit and shall have one judge;
(19) The counties of Barbour and Taylor shall constitute the
nineteenth circuit and shall have one judge;
(20) The county of Randolph shall constitute the twentieth
circuit and shall have one judge;
(21) The counties of Grant, Mineral and Tucker shall
constitute the twenty-first circuit and shall have two judges;
(22) The counties of Hampshire, Hardy and Pendleton shall
constitute the twenty-second circuit and shall have one judge:
Provided, That effective the first day of September, two thousand
eight, said circuit shall have two judges;
(23) The counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan shall
constitute the twenty-third circuit and shall have five judges;
(24) The county of Wayne shall constitute the twenty-fourth
circuit and shall have one judge:
Provided, That effective the
first day of September, two thousand eight, said circuit shall have
two judges;
(25) The counties of Lincoln and Boone shall constitute the twenty-fifth circuit and shall have two judges;
(26) The counties of Lewis and Upshur shall constitute the
twenty-sixth circuit and shall have one judge;
(27) The county of Wyoming shall constitute the twenty-seventh
circuit and shall have one judge;
(28) The county of Nicholas shall constitute the twenty-eighth
circuit and shall have one judge;
(29) The county of Putnam shall constitute the twenty-ninth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(30) The county of Mingo shall constitute the thirtieth
circuit and shall have one judge; and
(31) The counties of Monroe and Summers shall constitute the
thirty-first circuit and shall have one judge.
(b) The Kanawha County circuit court shall be a court of
concurrent jurisdiction with each single judge circuit where the
sitting judge in the single judge circuit is unavailable by reason
of sickness, vacation or other reason.
(c) 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.
(d) 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 eight shall commence on the first day of January, two thousand nine, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two
thousand sixteen.
(e) For election purposes, in every judicial circuit having
two or more judges there shall be 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.
(f) Judges serving a judicial circuit comprised of four or
more counties with two or more judges shall not be residents of the
same county.
(g) The Supreme Court of Appeals shall, by rule, establish the
terms of court of circuit judges.