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Judges and justice of the peace urge committee to let counties include county seats in justice court districts

2476470 · March 3, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Witnesses told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Senate Bill 913 would enfranchise residents who are currently barred from voting for or serving on justice-court juries because of a longstanding geographic restriction; supporters called the restriction outdated and potentially unconstitutional.

Senate Bill 913 would eliminate certain geographic limitations on justice court districts and allow counties to include the county seat or cities where circuit courts operate when establishing justice of the peace districts, witnesses told the Senate Committee on Judiciary on March 3.

Justin Kidd, the elected justice of the peace for Marion County, said the current statute bars roughly 140,000 Salem residents from voting for the justice of the peace or serving on justice-court juries despite being subject to the court's jurisdiction for many violations…

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