The Painesville Municipal Court hereby adopts the following Rules of Court for the handling of cases and management of the Court. These Rules are adopted pursuant to the authority of the Rules of Superintendence for Municipal and County Courts, Rule 5 and are intended to include a case management program pursuant to Rule 5B1 and Local Fax Filing Rules.

These Rules are intended to supplement and complement the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Ohio Traffic Rules, the Rules of Superintendence for Municipal and County Courts, and other controlling rules and statutes in the application and administration in proceedings in the Court.

These Rules shall be applied, construed and enforced so as to avoid inconsistency with other rules of court and statutes governing proceedings, functions and services of this Court. In their application and administration they shall be construed and employed so as to provide fairness and simplicity in procedure, to avoid technical and unjustifiable delay, and to secure just, expeditious and inexpensive determination of all actions and proceedings.

These Rules shall apply to all parties, counsel of record and subject matter of all actions, civil, criminal or traffic filed on and after the effective date hereof.

The offices of the Court shall be open between the hours of 8:00 o’clock A.M. and 4:30 o’clock P.M., Monday through Friday and 4:30 o’clock P.M. to 6:00 o’clock P.M. every Wednesday (traffic division only).* These hours may be extended or diminished by Order of the Court from time to time.

Motions for Continuance shall be submitted to the Court in writing at least seven (7) days in advance of the scheduled hearing, and must contain a brief in support setting forth the reasons requiring the continuance, along with a proposed Order for the Court’s review and approval. No continuance will be granted by phone.

When a continuance is sought for the reason that counsel is scheduled to appear in another case assigned for trial or hearing on the same date in another court in the State, the movant shall attach to his or her motion, a copy of the Notice received from the other court, along with a copy of the Notice received from this Court. Motions for Continuance sought due to a conflict in hearing or trial schedules shall be decided in accordance with Rule 41 (B) of the Rules of Superintendence for Municipal and County Courts.

Motions for Continuance submitted after the aforementioned seven (7) day period may be granted upon the showing of good cause constituting extreme hardship, unforeseen circumstances or other unavoidable conditions.

A proposed Judgment Entry must accompany all Motions for Continuance.

All criminal cases wherein the defendant pleads “not guilty” at the initial appearance or the case is not otherwise disposed of, shall be immediately set for a pretrial conference. The notice of the pretrial conference date shall be personally delivered to the defendant and/or his attorney prior to leaving court.

The defendant and his attorney shall be required to personally appear at the pretrial conference unless expressly excused by Court Order. All cases which are not disposed of at the conclusion of the pretrial conference shall be set for trial unless specifically indicated otherwise by the Court. Prior to leaving the Court at the conclusion of the pretrial conference, a notice of the trial date shall be personally delivered to the defendant and/or his attorney.

All trials shall be scheduled before the Court unless the defendant files a timely jury demand or otherwise is accorded a right to trial by jury pursuant to law.

All Motions shall be made in accordance with Criminal Rule 12. Any motion which, by its nature, is capable of determination without hearing shall be ruled on without hearing.

All criminal cases shall be heard only at the regularly scheduled date and time. Defendants may appear for hearing or disposition of their case at a time other than the regularly scheduled date and time only upon written motion filed in advance with the Court.

When the prosecutor desires to dismiss a criminal charge, he shall file a written application therefore pursuant to the provisions of the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule No. 48. The prosecutor shall state in a written application the reasons for the requested dismissal. A criminal charge may only be dismissed by the State by leave of court pursuant to this Rule.

A. Pursuant to the authority of Ohio Traffic Rule 13 and Criminal Rule 4.1 there is hereby established at the Painesville Municipal Court, a Traffic Violations Bureau. The Clerk of Court is hereby appointed as the Violations Clerk.

B. The purpose of the Violations Bureau shall be to accept appearance, waiver of trial, plea of guilty and payment of fine and costs for offenses within the authority of the Violations Bureau.

C. The Court hereby establishes and publishes a schedule of fines and costs for all offenses subject to the authority of the Violations Bureau. This schedule is attached hereto and marked Exhibit B and shall be distributed to all law enforcement agencies operating within the jurisdiction of the Court and shall be prominently displayed at the payment window of the Violations Bureau at the Court.

D. The Violations Bureau shall have authority to dispose of all traffic offenses and minor misdemeanor offenses except for the following offenses:

E. The procedure for a defendant’s appearance, plea and waiver of trial at the Violations Bureau shall be as set forth in Traffic Rule 13(D).

Pursuant to the provisions of the Non-Resident Violator compact, any police officer issuing a traffic citation or minor misdemeanor citation to a resident of a member jurisdiction shall not require the violator to post collateral to secure his appearance if the arresting officer receives the violator’s signed personal recognizance that he or she will comply with the summons. Any police officer issuing a citation to a non-resident motorist from a compact member jurisdiction for one of the following offenses shall not accept the violator’s personal recognizance but shall instead require the violator to post security in accordance with the attached bond schedule or in lieu thereof take the violator into custody and hold the violator in custody for an immediate appearance in Court at the first available court session:

Any law enforcement officer issuing a traffic citation or minor misdemeanor citation to a violator who is not a resident of Ohio but is a resident of a state which is not a signator to the Non-Resident Violator Compact shall require the violator to post security in accordance with the attached bond schedule or, in lieu thereof, shall take the violator into custody and hold the violator in custody for an immediate appearance in Court at the first available court session.

Any law enforcement officer issuing a traffic citation or minor misdemeanor citation to a violator who is resident of the State of Ohio shall not require the violator to post collateral to secure his appearance if the arresting officer receives the violator’s signed personal recognizance that the violator will comply with the summons. Provided, however, any such violator who has been charged with one of the following offenses shall instead be required to post security in accordance with the attached bond schedule or, in lieu thereof, the violator shall be taken into custody and held for an immediate appearance in Court at the first available court session:

The date of any defendant’s initial appearance on a traffic citation shall not be continued by the Court unless the defendant files a written motion with the Court in advance of the appearance date along with a brief memorandum or statement of facts setting forth the reasons requiring the continuance.

The provisions of this local rule are adopted under Civ.R. 5(E), Civ.R. 73(J) and Crim.R. 12 (B).

Pleadings and other papers may be filed with the Clerk of Court by facsimile transmission to (440) 352-0028 subject to the following conditions:

These rules apply to criminal, traffic, civil and small claims proceedings in the Painesville Municipal Court.

The following documents will not be accepted for fax filing: Jury Demand, New Complaints, and Garnishments.

A document filed by fax shall be accepted as the effective original filing. The person making a fax filing need not file any source document with the Clerk of Court but must, however, maintain in his or her records and have available for production on request by the court the source document filed by fax, with original signatures as otherwise required under the applicable rules, together with the source copy of the facsimile cover sheet used for the subject filing.

The source document filed by fax shall be maintained by the person making the filing until the case is closed and all opportunities for post judgment relief are exhausted.

A “facsimile transmission” means the transmission of a source document by a facsimile machine that encodes a document into optical or electrical signals, transmits and reconstructs the signals to print a duplicate of the source document at the receiving end.

A “facsimile machine” means a machine that can send and receive a facsimile transmission.

“Fax” is an abbreviation for “facsimile” and refers, as indicated by the context, to facsimile transmission or to a document so transmitted.

The Clerk of Court is not required to send any form of notice to the sending party of a failed fax filing. However, if practicable, the Clerk of Court may inform the sending party of a failed fax filing.

A party who files a signed document by fax represents that the physically signed source document is in his/her possession or control.

Each exhibit to a facsimile produced document that cannot be accurately transmitted via facsimile transmission for any reason must be replaced by an insert page describing the exhibit and why it is missing. Unless the court otherwise orders, the missing exhibit shall be filed with the court, as a separate document, not later than five (5) court days following the filing of the facsimile document. Failure to file the missing exhibits as required by this paragraph may result in the court striking the document and/or exhibit.

Any exhibit filed in this manner shall be attached to a cover sheet containing the caption of the case which sets forth the name of the court, title of the case, the case number, name of the judge and the title of the exhibit being filed (e.g., Plaintiff Smith’s Notice of Filing Exhibit “G” to Plaintiff Smith’s Response to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss), and shall be signed and served in conformance with the rules governing the signing and service of pleadings in this Court. (See appendix for sample exhibit cover sheet.)

Subject to the provisions of these rules, all documents sent by fax and received by the Clerk shall be considered filed with the Clerk of Courts as of the date and time the Clerk time-stamps the document received, as opposed to the date and time of the fax transmission. However, the fax machine will be available to receive facsimile transmission of documents on the basis of 24 hours per day seven days per week including holidays.

Fax filings may only be transmitted directly through the facsimile equipment operated by the Clerk of Court.

The risks of transmitting a document by fax to the Clerk of Court shall be borne entirely by the sending party. Anyone using facsimile filing is urged to verify receipt of such filing by the Clerk of Court through whatever technological means are available.

This rule on facsimile filing shall not apply to the filing of a jury demand in a civil case in the court.

Facsimile filing shall not exceed 10 pages in length. The filer shall not transmit service copies by facsimile.

These local rules shall be effective 3/1/06, and shall govern all proceedings in actions brought after they take effect and also further proceedings in pending actions, except to the extent that, in the opinion of the court, their application in a particular action pending on the effective date would not be feasible or would work an injustice, in which event, the former procedure applies.

These rules adopted this 1 st day of March, 2006, and shall be effective March 1, 2006.

These rules shall supersede and replace prior local rules of the Painesville Municipal Court.

IT IS SO ORDERED.