Bill will allow five pre-trial release pilot projects

 Governor Joe Manchin III signed Senate Bill 760 on May 20, authorizing the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia to establish up to five pre-trial release pilot projects around the state. The law became effective on July 7, 2009. 

The new law makes West Virginia safer, saves money on regional jail costs, and makes the administration of justice more efficient, the governor said. The Supreme Court will file annual reports to the Legislature on the progress of the pilot projects.

"The population of our jails and prisons is rapidly increasing. We are dealing with that every day on budget matters," Governor Manchin said. "When you have all branches of government working for the citizens of the state, it speaks volumes. This is the good that comes out of all of us working together." 

Supreme Court Justices Robin Jean Davis and Thomas McHugh attended the bill signing ceremony in the Governor's Reception Room. 

"We are delighted with the signing of the bill. It shows we are a very, very progressive state and a very progressive Court," Justice Davis said. 

Under the new law, only people charged with non-violent misdemeanors and felonies will be eligible for the pre-trial release pilot projects. 

The projects are based on a program that has been operating in Brooke County for several months. 

There, when a law enforcement officer arrests someone he or she believes is a good candidate for the program, the officer calls the magistrate on duty. That magistrate signs a release allowing the defendant to participate in the program rather than go to jail on bond while awaiting trial. The defendant must appear the next day to meet with a pre-trial officer who does a criminal background check and prepares a report to give to the prosecutor and a supervising magistrate or circuit judge.

While on pre-trial release, the defendant reports regularly to a pre-trial officer, wears a global positioning device, or is on home confinement, whichever is deemed most suitable by the supervising magistrate or circuit judge. The defendant must continue to work and pass regular urine checks. 

The purpose is to keep non-violent people out of jail while they are awaiting adjudication of charges against them, said Jim Lee, Chief Probation Officer in the First Judicial Circuit of Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio Counties. Although the Brooke County Commission pays $5 a day for every person in the pre-trial program, that is far less than the $48.50 cost of housing a prisoner one day in a regional jail. 

In Brooke County, a five-person pre-trial committee also meets every Monday morning to review the case of all Brooke County prisoners in the Northern Regional Jail. That panel refers as many cases as possible to the pre-trial program with the goal of having those defendants appear before a magistrate that afternoon so they can be released that afternoon.

The Brooke County program so far has been able to reduce that county's number of regional jail inmates from an average of forty-one per day to about fifteen per day, Lee said. 

"It saves the county commission on the regional jail bills and it helps on the overcrowding of the regional jails," said First Judicial Circuit Judge Martin J. Gaughan. "It saves money and it's common sense. It does work and there's evidence it works." 

"This is the natural outgrowth of community corrections, proving that we were, and we still are, on the cutting edge," said Supreme Court Administrator Steve Canterbury, who with Judge Gaughan and Lee are considered the founders of community corrections in West Virginia . 

The new law requires the pilot projects to be established in five circuits using existing community corrections resources, specifically pre-trial officers and day report centers. The location of the pilot projects has not been determined.