COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 291
(By Senators Helmick and Yoder)
____________
[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported February 14, 2008.]
____________
A BILL 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) Thethe counties of Brooke, Hancock and Ohio shall
constitute the first circuit and shall have four judges;
(2) Thethecounties of Marshall, Tyler and Wetzel shall constitute the second circuit and shall have two judges;
(3) Thethecounties of Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie
shall constitute the third circuit and shall have one judge;
(4) Thethe counties of Wood and Wirt shall constitute the
fourth circuit and shall have three judges;
(5) Thethecounties of Calhoun, Jackson, Mason and Roane
shall constitute the fifth circuit and shall have two judges;
(6) Thethecounty of Cabell shall constitute the sixth
circuit and shall have four judges;
(7) Thethecounty of Logan shall constitute the seventh
circuit and shall have two judges;
(8) Thethecounty of McDowell shall constitute the eighth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(9) Thethecounty 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) Thethecounty of Raleigh shall constitute the tenth
circuit and shall have three judges;
(11) Thethecounties of Greenbrier and Pocahontas shall
constitute the eleventh circuit and shall have two judges;
(12) Thethecounty of Fayette shall constitute the twelfth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(13) Thethecounty of Kanawha shall constitute the
thirteenth circuit and shall have seven judges;
(14) Thethecounties of Braxton, Clay, Gilmer and Webster shall constitute the fourteenth circuit and shall have two judges;
(15) Thethecounty of Harrison shall constitute the
fifteenth circuit and shall have three judges;
(16) Thethecounty of Marion shall constitute the sixteenth
circuit and shall have two judges;
(17) Thethecounty of Monongalia shall constitute the
seventeenth circuit and shall have two judges;
(18) Thethecounty of Preston shall constitute the
eighteenth circuit and shall have one judge;
(19) Thethecounties of Barbour and Taylor shall constitute
the nineteenth circuit and shall have one judge;
(20) Thethecounty of Randolph shall constitute the
twentieth circuit and shall have one judge;
(21) Thethecounties of Grant, Mineral and Tucker shall
constitute the twenty-first circuit and shall have two judges;
(22) Thethecounties 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) Thethecounties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan
shall constitute the twenty-third circuit and shall have
four
judges: Provided, That effective the first day of August, two
thousand six, said circuit shall have five judges;
(24) Thethecounty 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) Thethecounties of Lincoln and Boone shall constitute
the twenty-fifth circuit and shall have two judges;
(26) Thethecounties of Lewis and Upshur shall constitute
the twenty-sixth circuit and shall have one judge;
(27) Thethecounty of Wyoming shall constitute the
twenty-seventh circuit and shall have one judge;
(28) Thethecounty of Nicholas shall constitute the
twenty-eighth circuit and shall have one judge;
(29) Thethecounty of Putnam shall constitute the
twenty-ninth circuit and shall have two judges;
(30) Thethecounty of Mingo shall constitute the thirtieth
circuit and shall have one judge; and
(31) Thethecounties of Monroe and Summers shall constitute
the thirty-first circuit and shall have one
judge: Provided that
the judge.
(b) The Kanawha County circuit court shall be a court of
concurrent jurisdiction with each single judge circuit where the
sitting judge in
such the single judge circuit is unavailable by
reason of sickness, vacation or other reason.
(b) (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.
(c) (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
one nine, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two
thousand
eight sixteen.
(d) (e)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
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.
Provided, That beginning with the primary and general
elections to be conducted in the year two thousand, judges
(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.
(e) (g) The Supreme Court of Appeals shall, by rule, establish
the terms of court of circuit judges.
__________
(NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to authorize the Governor
to appoint an additional judge to the twenty-second judicial
circuit, consisting of Pendleton County, Hardy County and Hampshire
County, the ninth judicial circuit consisting of Mercer County and
the Twentieth Judicial Circuit consisting of Wayne County to
alleviate case loads.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.)
________
FINANCE COMMITTEE AMENDMENT
By striking out the title and substituting therefor a new
title, to read as follows:
Eng. Com. Sub. for Senate Bill No. 291--A Bill 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.