Jurisdiction of district courts in felony cases; specialty dockets; Behavioral Health Docket Act.
Summary
Jurisdiction of district courts in felony cases; specialty dockets; Behavioral Health Docket Act. Authorizes a general district court and a juvenile and domestic relations district court to retain jurisdiction over a felony offense for the purpose of allowing the accused to complete a specialty docket or behavioral health docket established pursuant to relevant law. Current law only explicitly provides such courts with the ability to certify felony charges to the circuit court or dismiss such charges after a preliminary hearing to determine if probable cause exists for such charges.
Bill status
vetoed
4 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Jan 2025
Committee Review
Feb 2025
House of Delegates Passage
Feb 2025
Senate Passage
Feb 2025
Vetoed
Mar 2025
Introduced Jan 4, 2025
Vetoed Mar 24, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison
What changed between versions
Introduced
→
Enrolled
·
1 edit
·
Feb 22, 2025
MINOR
This bill amends Virginia Code sections related to district court jurisdiction, specialty dockets, and behavioral health dockets. The changes primarily involve formatting and structural updates to the enrolled version of the bill, with no substantive policy modifications to the actual legal provisions. The text appears to be a comparison between the introduced draft and the final enrolled version, showing mostly whitespace and formatting differences rather than legislative changes.
Scope change
No substantive scope change; the bill maintains the same jurisdictional rules for general district courts, juvenile and domestic relations district courts, and provisions for specialty and behavioral health dockets.
TECHNICAL
The enrolled version includes additional header formatting, page numbering, and spacing adjustments not present in the introduced version, but the actual legal text remains substantively identical.
Floor votes · Senate Feb 17, 2025 · House of Delegates Feb 4, 2025
How they voted
39–0
Passed · 1 other
Total votes 40
Feb 17, 2025
D
Democratic21
100% Yea
R
Republican19
94% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea
All Nay
Mixed
No data
Full legislative history
Actions timeline
Total actions
26
Key actions
9
Committee
6
Apr 2, 2025
Vetoed
House sustained Governor's veto
lower
Mar 24, 2025
Vetoed
Vetoed by Governor
executive
Feb 22, 2025
Upper · Passed
Signed by President
upper
Feb 19, 2025
Lower · Passed
Signed by Speaker
lower
Feb 19, 2025
Lower · Passed
Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB1713ER)
lower
Feb 17, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed Senate (39-Y 0-N)
upper
Feb 14, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed by for the day
upper
Feb 12, 2025
Upper · Passed
Reported from Courts of Justice (15-Y 0-N)
upper
Feb 5, 2025
Committee
Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice
upper
Feb 4, 2025
Lower · Passed
Read third time and passed House (55-Y 44-N)
lower
Jan 29, 2025
Lower · Passed
Reported from Courts of Justice (16-Y 6-N)
lower
Jan 24, 2025
Lower · Passed
Subcommittee recommends reporting (7-Y 1-N)
lower
Jan 21, 2025
Committee
Assigned Courts sub: Criminal
lower
Jan 4, 2025
Committee
Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice
lower
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors
Sponsors
Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
Vivian Watts
DDemocratic
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