Senate Bill No. 400
(By Senators Kessler, Guills, Jenkins, Caruth, Barnes and
Plymale)
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[Introduced January 31, 2007; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to providing for additional circuit
court judges to be appointed to the fifth, ninth, tenth,
thirteenth, nineteenth, twenty-second, twenty-third,
twenty-fourth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh and thirtieth
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:
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 three 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
three judges; the county of Raleigh shall constitute the tenth
circuit and shall have
three four 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 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; 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 two judges; 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 two judges; the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and
Morgan shall constitute the twenty-third circuit and shall have
four five judges;
Provided, That effective the first day of August,
two thousand six, said circuit shall have five judges; the county
of Wayne shall constitute the twenty-fourth circuit and shall have
one judge 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 two judges; the county of Wyoming
shall constitute the twenty-seventh circuit and shall have
one
judge two judges; 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 two judges; and the counties of Monroe and Summers shall constitute the thirty-first circuit and shall have
one judge:
Provided, That 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 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 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.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to create additional
circuit judgeships consistent with recommendations from the
National Center for State Courts.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.