Tag: Magistrate Pay

Ex-Magistrate Admonished

The state Judicial Investigation Commission has publicly admonished a Putnam County magistrate who resigned earlier this month, calling his handling of a Hurricane man’s case “a travesty of justice.” 

Media outlets report that the admonishment stems from Scot Lawrence’s handling of an August court proceeding in which he was recorded taunting Hurricane resident Troy Sexton and challenging him to a fight. Lawrence said Sexton had called him a “piggy” in a previous motion and had said “oink, oink” when passing a police trooper before proceedings began.

According to the admonishment from the commission made public on Dec. 18, Lawrence will not face disciplinary action since he agreed to resign as magistrate and never again seek judicial office in West Virginia.

Lawrence left a letter of resignation on his desk Dec. 6.
 

Senators Work to Realigin Magistrate Court System

The study came as a companion to a bill approved during the 2013 legislative session. That bill gave pay raises to some magistrates in smaller counties.

Conducted by the National Center on State Courts, the results of the study were presented during January interim meetings, just a day before the legislative session began.

The NCSC presented three options to reduce the overall number of magistrates, keeping the current county based system, aligning it with the circuit courts, or aligning with the regional jail system.

In the originating bill, Senators proposed keeping the current county system in place, but reducing the overall number from 158 to 149 and reassigning some positions to counties that have larger workloads, like Berkeley and Kanawha.

Overall, the county system reduces the system by the least number of magistrates, but members of the committee tried to amend the bill Sunday evening by taking out any mention of reductions.

Sen. Bob Beach of Monongalia County attempted to make the change, but his amendment failed even after receiving bi-partisan support.

The bill in its original form was approved and moves to the Senate Finance Committee for further consideration. 

Study Recommends Regional Magistrate Court System

Lawmakers were presented the final recommendations Tuesday from a national group that’s been studying the state’s magistrate court system for years.

The National Center for State Courts began the study in 2013 after lawmakers approved a pay increase for a small group of magistrates across the state. The study is focused on realigning the system so the number of magistrates in each county is based on the time spent on cases instead of the county’s population.

Cynthia Lee with the NCSC told members of the Joint Finance and Joint Judiciary Committees the time portion of casework is much more important to understanding what magistrates do than the number of cases they see. For example, she said a domestic violence case takes much longer to resolve than a traffic ticket.

That’s why the NCSC is suggesting the state realign magistrates based on what’s called a weighted workload system instead of the population based approach West Virginia takes now.

They also recommend the state change from a county based system to a more regional approach which would allow the sharing of magistrates across county lines.

Riley Barb, President of the state magistrates association, asked lawmakers to keep in mind the infrastructure challenges facing the state.

He said magistrates are supposed to provide local access to justice and lessening the number of them could make that more difficult in rural areas.

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