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title: Rules of the District Court

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title: Rules of the District Court
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# Rules of the District Court
These rules shall be cited as Mayfl. D. Ct. #(#)
### RULE 1 - IN GENERAL
1. The Clerk of the District Court, the Chief Judge, or person otherwise responsible for the assignment of a case to a judge, shall ensure that the case gets assigned a case number. Case numbers shall be formatted as follows where the number symbols indicate a randomly generated number and “YY” indicates the last two numbers of the current year:
    1. Criminal: CR-#####-YY
    2. Civil: CV-#####-YY
    3. Expungement: EX-#####-YY
    4. Warrant Appeal: WA-#####-YY
    5. Courts-Martial: CM-#####-YY
### RULE 2 - EFFECTIVE CRIMINAL SUBMISSIONS
1. Criminal submissions (those from the Department of Justice and Judge Advocate General’s Corps) must be promptly formatted by the Clerk of the District Court, the Chief Judge, or the person otherwise designated. The case number will be assigned as described in Rule 1 and the matter transferred to the appropriate charging agency for the filing of a criminal information.
2. Once the respective charging agency has made their criminal decision and gathered their evidence, the submission should be transferred back to the Clerk who will then assign it to a judge.
### RULE 3 - PRETRIAL PROCEDURE
1. A pretrial period in all civil matters (expungement excluded) shall be ordered immediately following the issuance of summons upon both parties. The judge shall commence pretrial for a period of ten days (10), or two-hundred and forty hours (240).
2. A pretrial period in all criminal matters shall commence upon the arrival of the Defendant’s counsel, whether they proceed *pro se*, attain private counsel or if the trial proceeds in absentia, the pretrial period should start upon the arrival of the Defendant’s Public Defender.
3. In all criminal matters, the Defendant has two (2) days to decide whether or not they wish to attain private counsel, proceed *pro se*, or have a Public Defender. The pretrial period shall commence after the two days have passed, unless it meets the exception granted under Rule 3.4.
4. If a Defendant opts for a Public Defender, pretrial shall not start until a Public Defender has been appointed.
5. The pretrial period may end before the ordered ten days (10) if both parties to a matter agree to forgo the remainder of the ordered pretrial period.
6. The pretrial period may be extended if at least one of the parties, and the Presiding Judge, agree to extend it.
7. The pretrial period may be extended by a *maximum* of ten days (10), or two-hundred and forty hours (240). Lesser extensions may proceed, however, cumulatively the extensions *cannot* surpass the ten-day (10), or two-hundred and forty hour (240) total.
8. An individual may file a pretrial motion up until forty-eight (48) hours before the end of the pretrial period.
9. A party may only respond once to a pretrial motion if they wish to respond at all. That response must be filed within forty-eight (48) hours of the motion being made.
10. A judge may not permit the filing of any motion or response that has is made outside of the pretrial period.
11. At the end of the pretrial period, the judge shall enter an order to all pretrial motions that have not already been decided. The judge is otherwise able to enter an order immediately after a motion is made and both parties respond or decline to respond.
12. The judge, immediately following the pretrial period, shall entertain all reasonable efforts to ensure that the case moves to trial.
