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2009 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Courts of Justice

Chairman: Henry L. Marsh III

Clerk: Angi Murphy
Staff: J. French, M. Felch, K. Stokes
Date of Meeting: February 11, 2009
Time and Place: 2:00 PM, Senate Room A

H.B. 1707

Patron: Oder

Energy performance-based contracts; local assistance.  Requires the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to make a reasonable effort as long as workload permits, to provide general assistance to localities, upon request, considering energy performance-based contracts.  The bill also requires the Department to compile information annually concerning any energy performance-based contract of a locality of which the Department becomes aware.

H.B. 1805

Patron: Loupassi

Operation of a motor vehicle without an ignition interlock; penalty.  Provides that operation of a motor vehicle without an ignition interlock when such operation is prohibited is a Class 1 misdemeanor and that the person's operator's license shall be revoked for one year.

H.B. 1845

Patron: Lingamfelter

Occasional remote access to land records; pilot program; fee. Allows the clerk of the Circuit Court of Prince William County to establish a pilot program under which a daily fee is assessed for occasional remote access to land records by the general public. The clerk shall also assess a separate fee per image downloaded in an amount not to exceed the usual copying fee. The clerk shall make a report on the pilot program to the House and Senate Committees for Courts of Justice on or before September 30, 2012. The bill expires September 30, 2012.

H.B. 1874

Patron: Cosgrove

Power of magistrates to issue felony arrest warrants.  Provides that no magistrate may issue an arrest warrant upon the basis of a citizen complaint, for a felony offense, without prior authorization from the attorney for the Commonwealth or from a law-enforcement agency in his jurisdiction.

H.B. 1914

Patron: BaCote

Foster care.  Deletes Code references to "continued foster care." Additionally, a petition for a foster care review hearing described under § 16.1-282 shall set forth the disposition sought and the grounds therefor; however, if a continuation of foster care is recommended, a foster care plan for such period of continued foster care shall also be included and shall address (i) the role the current foster parents or other care providers will play in the future planning for the child and (ii) in the case of a child who has attained age 16 and for whom the plan is independent living, the services needed to assist the child to transition from foster care to independent living. Under this bill, such petition shall set forth the disposition sought and the grounds therefor; however, in the case of a child who has attained age 16 and for whom the plan is independent living, the foster care plan shall address the services needed to assist the child to transition from foster care to independent living.

H.B. 2108

Patron: Sherwood

Personal appearance by two-way electronic video and audio communication.  Provides that if two-way electronic video and audio communication is available for use by a district court in any pre-trial criminal proceeding to determine bail or representation by counsel, the court shall use such communication in any proceeding that would otherwise require the transportation of a person from outside the jurisdiction of the court in order to appear in person before the court.

H.B. 2126

Patron: Byron

Business entities; employing illegal aliens.  Relocates provisions that require the cancellation of limited liability companies, limited partnerships, and business trusts, whether domestic or foreign, upon conviction for violating federal law for actions of its members or managers constituting a pattern or practice of employing unauthorized aliens in the Commonwealth, to sections of the Limited Liability Company Act, Limited Partnership Act, and Business Trust Act that were enacted in 2008 to provide for the involuntary cancellation of the existence of a limited liability company, limited partnership, and business trust, and the registration of their foreign counterparts. The measure has an emergency clause and will become effective on April 1, 2009, which is the effective date of the business entity provisions enacted in 2008.

EMERGENCY

H.B. 2160

Patron: Toscano

Post-adoption contact and communication.  Authorizes and establishes procedures governing post-adoption contact and communication agreements between the birth parent or parents of a child and the pre-adoptive parent or parents.

H.B. 2275

Patron: Poindexter

Drug Treatment Court Act.  Authorizes a drug treatment court for the County of Franklin provided that such court is funded within existing state and local appropriations.

H.B. 2310

Patron: Melvin

Confidentiality of court records.  Provides that any person, agency, or institution that may inspect juvenile case files shall be authorized to have copies made of such records, subject to any restrictions, conditions, or prohibitions that the court may impose. This bill is a recommendation of the Committee on District Courts.

H.B. 2312

Patron: Melvin

Writs of actual innocence; requirements.  Extends the ability to petition for a writ of actual innocence based on previously unknown or untested biological evidence to individuals who are not incarcerated.

H.B. 2460

Patron: O'Bannon

Transportation of person under emergency custody order.  Provides for transportation of a person who is the subject of an emergency custody order as a result of their inability to protect themselves from harm, persons under a temporary detention order, and persons under an involuntary commitment order by a family member or friend, representative of the community services board, or other alternative transportation provider with staff trained to provide transportation in a safe manner.  

H.B. 2486

Patron: Ward

Emergency custody; authority of law-enforcement officer.  Authorizes a law-enforcement officer who is transporting a person who has voluntarily consented to being transported to a facility for assessment or evaluation and who subsequently revokes consent to be transported to take such person into emergency custody when the law-enforcement officer determines that consent has been revoked and the person meets the criteria for emergency custody, even if the law-enforcement officer is beyond the territorial limits of the jurisdiction in which he serves.  This bill also clarifies that a law-enforcement officer who takes a person into emergency custody based upon his own observations or reliable reports of others may transport such person beyond the territorial boundaries of the jurisdiction in which he serves in order to obtain the required assessment. This bill states that it is declarative of existing law.