S.B. 1290 reported by House Courts of Justice

Senator Edward’s bill, S.B. 1290, was reported by the House Courts of Justice to the full House yesterday by a vote of 20 to 2.

Although Edward’s proclaimed the bill to be a clarifying bill for the juvenile code, Chairman Albo noted that if the Code was clarified in the juvenile section of the Code only, then that might lead to some discrepancy in the civil and criminal sections.  S.B. 1290, if passed, would ensure that a trial from the J&DR court (not a court of record) to the circuit court would be a de novo trial.  Currently this was the practice, but it was not written into the code.

The House Courts of Justice amended the bill to include such a clarifying clause in the civil section of the Code as well, for those cases tried in a civil court not of record.  After researching the issue yesterday, the Courts Committee concluded that the criminal Code already had such a provision.

YEAS–Albo, Kilgore, Athey, Janis, Bell, Cline, Fralin, Iaquinto, Gilbert, Peace, Loupassi, Johnson, Melvin, Armstrong, Barlow, Toscano, Watts, Marsden, Valentine, Herring–20.

NAYS–Griffith, Miller, J.H.–2