Court Opinion

ID: 9667543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:48:43.574128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.777404
License: Public Domain

Order On Petition for Rehearing.
MILLIKEN, Chief Justice.
The appellant’s petition for a rehearing coming on to be heard, and there having been presented to the Court a motion of the appellant to withdraw said petition; also a motion by one Taylor (Dock) Justice, Magistrate for District No. 4 of Pike County, to be substituted as appellant, accompanied by his brief in support of a rehearing; also briefs in support of the opinion on behalf of the Kentucky State Bar Association and briefs in support of a rehearing on behalf of the Magistrates’ and Commissioners’ Association of Kentucky; and the Court being advised,
It is ordered that a rehearing be denied and that the opinion of May 4, 1956, shall stand as the opinion of this Court.
However, it appearing that the immediate abolition of the criminal jurisdiction of justices of the peace, in the ab-. sence of ‘remedial legislation by the General Assembly, may cause great public, in.-. convenience, and may impede the prompt administration of justice in misdemeanor cases; and it further appearing -that appropriate remedial legislation may not be attainable during the remainder of the terms of the justices of the peace now in office; and it further appearing that rea-. sonably adequate protection of. the constitutional right of fair trial, during a necessary transition period, will be afforded through the long recognized right of a defendant to demand that his case be tried by an impartial court, provided that notice of this right is given to the defendant by the jüstice of the peace before whom he is brought for trial,
„ It is further ordered that the mandate upon the opinion of May 4, 1956, be withheld until the expiration of the current term of office for justices of the peace, on ‘ January 5, 1958.