ENGROSSED
Senate Bill No. 334
(By Senators Wooton, Ball, Bowman, Dittmar, Fanning, Hunter,
Oliverio, Schoonover, Snyder, White, Buckalew, Deem, Kimble and
Scott)
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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported March 13, 1997.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section thirteen-a, article twenty-one,
chapter twenty-nine of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to reimbursement
of the cost of transcripts provided by official court
reporters; and requiring public defender services to keep
computer records of payments made for such transcripts.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section thirteen-a, article twenty-one, chapter twenty- nine of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred
thirty-one, 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
such 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.
(c) 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
such
an interim basis, when combined with any
such 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 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 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,
such 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.
(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
such 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
such 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
twenty-five cents 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
such 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
such 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.