Request By:
Ms. Judy B. Milby
Green Circuit Court Clerk
11th Judicial District
Courthouse
Greensburg, Kentucky 42743
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You ask if it is mandatory for the circuit clerk to collect the arrest fee payable to city policemen or the sheriff.
KRS 64.090 provides an arrest fee for sheriffs in misdemeanor cases to be paid by plaintiff, of $10. See KRS 95.480 which authorizes the chief of police in cities of the second class or of urban county government to receive the arresting fee where earned.
Such fee can be collected and paid to the arresting officer under these conditions: (1) the defendant is convicted; (2) the defendant, upon a judgment of conviction and costs being entered, pays the fee into the court clerk. (3) Then, if items (1) and (2) are satisfied, the clerk pays over the fee to the Department of Finance along with various fees, fines and costs paid into the state treasury through the Department of Finance pursuant to KRS 30A.190. See KRS 64.340. See also
Bell County v. Minton, 239 Ky. 840, 40 S.W.2d 379 (1931); and KRS 30A.090(2).
We agree with A.O.C. that the clerk is under no affirmative duty to collect such fees. They are payable only under the conditions outlined above. The circuit clerk should, in reporting and paying in all fees, costs, etc., collected, to the State Department of Finance pursuant to KRS 30A.190, document adequately the officer or officers entitled to such arresting fee collected in order that the fees can be finally paid over, out of the state treasury, to the officers earning the fees and who are entitled to it by statute. Of course only those city policemen authorized by an express statute to collect such arresting fee would be entitled to it under the above procedure.