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KRS 24A.110

Criminal jurisdiction

Known as the Small Claims Act

The act spans §§ 24–24 (47 sections).

Applied in 26 court decisions — leading case Soto v. Commonwealth (2004)

Most recently applied in Delahanty v. Commonwealth (May 2018)

History: Created 1976 (1st Extra

How often courts cite this section

1979199020002010201830
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) The District Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to make final disposition of all criminal matters, including violations of county, urban-county, or city ordinances or codes, except:

(a) Offenses denominated by statute as felonies or capital offenses; and (b) Offenses punishable by death or imprisonment in the penitentiary.

(2) The District Court has exclusive jurisdiction to make a final disposition of any charge or a public offense denominated as a misdemeanor or violation, except where the charge is joined with an indictment for a felony, and all violations of county, urban-county, or city ordinances and, prior to trial, to commit the defendant to jail or hold him to bail or other form of pretrial release.

(3) The District Court has, concurrent with Circuit Court, jurisdiction to examine any charge of a public offense denominated as a felony or capital offense or which may be punished by death or imprisonment in the penitentiary and to commit the defendant to jail or hold him to bail or other form of pretrial release.

(4) The District Court may, upon motion and for good cause shown, reduce a charge of a felony to a misdemeanor in accordance with the Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.