When it rains, it pours. (And no, we aren’t talking about this weekend’s weather.)

Looking ahead

Now the struggle gets real in the House. Due to looming deadlines, you can probably stick a fork in any House bill that has not been heard in a committee in the next two weeks. (Senate bills have until early May to get heard though.) That means long bills lists and short notices are now the norm going forward. Committee hearings are the best place to slow down bills, so pay attention to these bill postings below and get involved if you want to sink (or save!) a bill.

Because we aren’t busy enough already …

It looks like we’ll be talking about bail bond reform next week (finally).

Before adjourning for the weekend, the House suspended its normal posting requirements to allow Monday’s Criminal Jurisprudence Committee meeting to include HB 1323 by Murr (R-Junction), HB 2020 by Kacal (R-Bryan), and HB 3283 by White (R-Hillister). In order, those are: the chief justice’s plan, the governor’s plan, and … another, more modest bail bond bill that hasn’t gotten much attention. Oh, and both of the first two bills are called “The Damon Allen Act” in memory of a fallen highway patrol trooper, even though they do very different things. All three bills are now part of the full committee agenda on Monday.

HB 1323 by Murr is the bail bond reform pushed last session by the chief justice. For a full summary of the bill, see our Week 5 Legislative Update. The main sticking point with it for some prosecutors last session was the denial-of-bail provisions that trigger a new right to an evidentiary hearing within 10 days at which witnesses may be called by either side and the State must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the arrestee is a flight risk who will endanger the public/victims. That proposal was eventually stripped from last session’s Senate version before the bill died in the House, but it has re-appeared in the current bill as filed.

HB 2020 by Kacal is the governor’s preferred vehicle for bail bond “reform,” although it does little to address various federal cases challenging current practices. Instead, it seeks to ensure potentially dangerous offenders are not released with inadequate security. The most controversial part of this bill as filed is probably the requirement that only a district court judge can grant bail to arrestees accused of felonies and misdemeanor crimes of violence. There is likely to be a new version of this bill laid out in committee on Monday, but we have yet to see it.

HB 3283 by White authorizes the use of local bail schedules but allows a defendant who cannot meet the amount set in his case to make a “counter-offer” which must be considered by a magistrate within 48 hours, and if rejected, the defendant has a right to another hearing for re-consideration within four days of that determination.

These three bills now join the AG’s trafficking bill, grand jury reform, and 24 other bills teed up for consideration on Monday—all in the same committee. If we survive it, we’ll update you next week on how things shake out.

AG’s trafficking bill update

To update Thursday’s report: The Senate version of SB 1257 by Huffman (R-Houston) was voted out of the Senate State Affairs Committee last night by a 7-0 vote (Nelson (R) and Lucio (D) absent). Once the paperwork is done, it may be considered by the full Senate via the Senate Intent Calendar (requiring a three-fifths majority vote) or on the Local and Uncontested Calendar. As previously reported, the House version—HB 3979 by Leach (R-Plano)—is set for a hearing Monday afternoon in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Contact Rob if you want to get involved in this issue, time is of the essence.

“Stay in your lane, bro”

Those of you coming to Austin to help legislators craft good public policy should know that not everyone appreciates your unsolicited input. Specifically, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and various Tea Party-affiliated groups deem your involvement at the legislature to be “taxpayer-funded lobbying” and want to curtail your ability to impact the legislative process. Most of their efforts are directed at the cities, counties, and school districts who have thwarted some of their preferred policy initiatives over the years, such as school choice, property tax restrictions, and more. But make no mistake: Prosecutors and law enforcement are also in their crosshairs, both individually and as a group—namely, TDCAA—and for the same reason. (Think civil asset forfeiture, grand jury reform, and various other policy proposals pushed by Right on Crime and its supporters). All told, there are more than a dozen of these kinds of bills filed this session. Here are the ones that are actually moving through the legislative process right now:

• HB 281 by Middleton (R-Wallisville): Political subdivisions that impose a tax may not spend money to influence legislation or pay dues to associations that do so (passed House State Affairs Committee, soon to be sent to House Calendars Committee)
• SB 29 by Hall (R-Edgewood): No political subdivision may spend money to influence legislation or contribute to or pay in any manner an association that influences legislation (passed Senate State Affairs Committee, awaiting consideration on Senate floor)
• SB 702 by Bettencourt (R-Houston): Political subdivisions must approve by public vote each individual expenditure to influence legislation and report all such expenditures to the Ethics Commission, including association dues (passed Senate, referred to House State Affairs Committee)

We will leave it to you to decide what action, if any, these bills call for on your part. While a few of you might find the more drastic proposals somewhat offensive, please do not take it personally. If anything, it is a compliment to you—both individually and as members of our association—that certain advocacy groups who cannot beat you and your subject-matter expertise on the battlefield of ideas are now trying to take you off that field altogether.

Feel free to contact Shannon for more information about any of these bills.

Money

The Senate will take up their version of HB 1, the state budget, on Tuesday, but that debate is usually quite perfunctory in comparison to the House’s all-nighter. Once the Senate replaces the House’s language with their own and sends it back to the House to go to a conference committee, we’ll provide you with a House/Senate comparison and update you on where related issues (judicial branch pay raise, longevity pay, etc.) stand.

Upcoming committee hearings

For a reminder of everything set for Monday, April 8, see Thursday’s report. Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted for later in the week:

Tuesday, April 9

Senate Criminal Justice – 1:30 p.m., Room E1.016

• SB 691 and SCR 10 repealing automatic DL suspensions for certain drug offenses
• SB 1125 by Hinojosa permitting video testimony by forensic analysts in criminal proceedings
• SB 1698 by Whitmire barring juvenile certifications/transfers for state jail or 3^rd-degree felonies
• SB 1754 by Huffman simplifying the elements of taking a weapon from certain officers
• SB 2114 by West requiring law enforcement agencies to confirm compliance with discovery laws
• SB 2381 by Hughes legalizing long knives in bars, amusement parks, and churches

Wednesday, April 10

House Homeland Security & Public Safety – 8:00 a.m., E2.016

• HB 372 by Allen reducing penalties for DWLI
• HB 1207 by Rodriguez creating a criminal penalty for failure to report a lost or stolen firearm
• HB 1208 by Rodriguez relating to storing firearms for certain protective order respondents
• HB 1590 by Howard creating the Office for Sexual Assault Survivor Assistance
• HB 3106 by Goldman requiring ongoing sex crime investigations to be entered into TDEx
• HB 3191 by Moody requiring protective order respondents to surrender their firearms
• HB 3540 by Burns authorizing peace officers to release in lieu of arrest certain disabled persons
• HB 4236 by Anderson allowing viewing of certain body cam footage by victims’ families

House Juvenile Justice & Family Issues – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, E2.012

• HB 2491 by Wu prohibiting commitment to a TJJD facility for any state jail felony
• HB 2756 by Leach protecting parental rights in CPS cases
• HB 4606 by White mandating diversion programs for youths accuses of Class C offenses

Thursday, April 11

House Corrections – 8:00 a.m., E2.030

• HB 1115 by White mandating policies for the placement of children accompanying arrestees
• HB 1271 by Thompson granting certain 3g offenders early parole consideration
• HB 2481 by Metcalf authorizing certain veterans deferred adjudication for DWI
• HB 2772 by Wilson barring mandatory supervision release of TDCJ inmates from county jails
• HB 3297 by Allen barring probation revocation for any unadjudicated new offense
• HB 3303 by Bowers barring probation revocation of kid’s caretakers absent certain new offenses
• HB 3512 by Pacheco mandating early release of compliant probationers after half their term
• HB 4009 by Toth creating victim-offender mediation programs
• HB 4104 by White mandating specialty court probation for certain felony prostitution cases
• HB 4594 by J. Gonzalez mandating probation for state jail and 3^rd-degree felony drug cases

House Pensions/Investments/Financial Services – 8:00 a.m., E2.026

• HB 2624 by Perez facilitating the prosecution of criminal offenses involving fraud
• HB 2625 by Perez creating the offense of mass fraudulent use/possession of credit/debit information
• HB 2945 by Perez criminalizing payment card skimmers on gas pump dispensers

Senate Finance – 9:00 a.m., E1.036

•   SB 918 by Huffman repealing the DRP and replacing it with other fees and DWI fines

House Public Health, Subcommittee on Medical Marijuana – 10:30 a.m. or upon adj., E2.012

• HB 122 by Hinojosa prohibiting investigation or prosecution of certain doctors
• HB 1365 by Lucio III legalizing and regulating medical cannabis
• HB 3703 by Klick expanding Texas’ Compassionate Use Act
• HB 4045 by Dominguez legalizing and regulating medical cannabis
• HB 4097 by Blanco legalizing and regulating medical cannabis by veterans for PTSD
• HB 4276 by Zedler legalizing certain CBD oil
• HB 4508 by Lucio III exempting low-THC CBD oil from the criminal definition of marijuana

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Upcoming calendars

The following bills have been calendared for consideration on the House floor next week: HB 226 by Krause (revising or repealing various non-Penal Code crimes), HB 444 by Meyer (insider trading), HB 446 by Moody (removing knuckles from the list of prohibited weapons), HB 869 by Hefner (credit card skimmers at gas pumps), and HB 1030 by Moody (revising jury instructions in capital cases).

The following bills are eligible to be considered on the Senate floor at any point:

SB 9 by Hughes (election fraud), SB 38 by Zaffirini (hazing), SB 325 by Huffman (protective order registry), SB 710 by Creighton (county ethics commissions), and SB 1640 by Watson (“walking quorum” fix).

These lists change daily, so click on this link to access the latest House Calendar or Senate Intent Calendar.

Floor action

The House passed the following bills over to the Senate: HB 27 by Canales (assault of federal officer) and HB 101 by Canales (new crime of false caller ID).

The Senate passed the following bills over to the House: SB 201 by Huffman (looting enhancements) and SB 702 by Bettencourt (counties must disclose money spent to influence legislation).

Committee action

House bills approved by committees last week include: HB 344 by Dutton (raising juvenile jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds), HB 1139 by S. Thompson (pre-trial determination of intellectual disability in capital cases), HB 1364 by Wu (excluding from juvenile jurisdiction 10- and 11-year-olds who commit offenses below a second-degree felony), HB 1482 by Lozano (hazing), and HB 1936 by Rose (no death penalty for murderers with serious mental illness). These bills now go to the Calendars Committee, which decides which of them will be heard by the full House.

In the Senate, committees approved the following bills: SB 21 by Huffman (no smoking under age 21), SB 370 by Watson (employment protections for jurors), SB 801 by Rodriguez (protective order revisions), SB 891 by Huffman (omnibus new courts bill), and SB 1802 by Huffman (enhancements for human trafficking-related crimes). These bills are now eligible to be placed on the Senate Intent Calendar at the discretion of their authors.

More Quotes of the Week

“That’s gutless. Mr. McNutt knew exactly where I was. I was on the House floor and he chose to go to my home, to Lake Jackson where my 14-year-old son was.”

House Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), responding to news that an advocate of “constitutional carry” personally visited the homes of several House members last week in a lobbying stunt he publicized on social media. The following day, State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) announced he would not seek a hearing for HB 357, his permit-less carry bill.

“My mother’s fertility doctor decided to use his own sperm instead of the sperm donor that my parents selected and consented to, and without their knowledge. And then I had to be the one to tell my mother that this had happened.”

Eve Wiley, who is seeking legislation to make assisted reproduction or fertility fraud a criminal offense under the current sexual assault statute.

“I believe this is the legislative session that we come together, in bipartisan fashion, to pass a bill to prohibit this practice that can have life-altering consequences for those who unnecessarily end up in jail. Ending this practice will free up time for police to attend to serious crimes.”

State Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston), touting HB 482, her bill to ban arrests for most Class C misdemeanors.

“I messed up. The mistake was, it was an archaic 180-page document that I did not know contained this particular provision. I guess I did not scour everything that could possibly disrupt a run.”

New Harris County Civil Court-at-Law #4 Judge William McLeod, who did not realize that he was resigning from the bench by operation of law when he announced his candidacy for the Texas Supreme Court.

They say every hurricane has a calm eye where you can find some brief rest, but there are only seven weeks left before the legislature adjourns sine die and we’re still looking for that bit of peace and quiet.

The gloves are coming off

On Tuesday, the “Kumbaya Session” officially ended (at least in the state Senate). On the heels of debates over, and the passage of, two red meat bills on abortion and religious liberty, the Senate Republicans sprang a surprise vote on the Senate Democrats over SR 535, a resolution filed that same day supporting President Trump’s declaration of an emergency along the Texas-Mexico border. This was not an item posted for consideration, and the opponents of the resolution did not take kindly to that unusual tactic. Things were then made worse by some unkind words used about a certain senator’s district (mental note: Don’t refer to someone’s home district as a “ghetto”), and all hell broke loose. The resolution eventually passed on a party line vote after several hours of debate, but the damage has been done. Expect more bare-knuckle politics from here on out.

The Attorney General, concurrent jurisdiction, and human trafficking

This morning, the Senate State Affairs Committee took testimony on SB 1257 by Huffman (R-Houston). The committee substitute that was laid out confers concurrent jurisdiction on the attorney general in all multijurisdictional human trafficking cases, gives the AG the right to take all crimes and offenses related to that human trafficking case, and gives the local prosecutor a right of first refusal for a local human trafficking case—meaning that if the local DA decides not to prosecute the case, the AG can step in and prosecute it.

For the first time in his tenure, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) personally testified for the bill. He talked about his passion for this issue and professed that this bill is only about assisting prosecutors, while entirely avoiding any discussion of the jurisdiction-grab issue. However, citing Office of Court Administration statistics for the proposition that only 16 counties have seen human trafficking prosecutions since 2016, he argued that his office needs the authority to step in to prosecute human trafficking cases where local prosecutors are not.

Speaking against the bill was a diverse group of prosecutors: El Paso County DA Jaime Esparza, Brazos County DA Jarvis Parsons, Bexar County CDA Joe Gonzales, Montgomery County DA Brett Ligon, Harris County DA Kim Ogg and her assistant DA, Johna Stallings, Rockwall County CDA Kenda Culpepper, Comal County CDA Jennifer Tharp, and Dallas County Asst. CDA Amy Derrick (plus several others who registered their opposition without testifying). They testified that: 1) prosecutors are trying human trafficking cases under different Penal Code provisions that are not captured in the statistics; 2) the OCA statistics undercount human trafficking cases because of that (something noted by OCA’s own report); 3) district and county attorneys have a good working relationship with the AG which will be unnecessarily jeopardized by this jurisdiction bill; 4) any grant of criminal jurisdiction to the AG without the local prosecutor’s consent is unconstitutional; and 5) district and county attorneys are prosecuting the human trafficking cases that they get and doing a darn good job of it, too. It was quite a strong showing, and the media even picked up on the debate and observed how opposition to this bill had apparently galvanized prosecutors from both parties. The bill was left pending but could soon be voted on in the Senate State Affairs Committee (membership here) at any time. If that occurs, the bill author needs 19 votes to bring the bill up for consideration on the Senate floor, and we will discuss that process in greater detail should the need arise.

Meanwhile, we just received notice that the House companion to this bill—HB 3979 by Leach (R-Plano)—will be heard in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee this upcoming Monday, April 8. If you need more information or want to get involved, please contact Rob ASAP.

Grand jury update

The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard HB 2427 by Reynolds (D-Missouri City) on Monday. This bill would grant grand jury witnesses and targets the right to have a lawyer accompany them in the grand jury room during questioning. Several elected prosecutors—including Midland County DA Laura Nodolf, Washington County DA Julie Renken, Rockwall County CDA Kenda Culpepper, and Dawson County DA Philip Mack Furlow—testified against the bill, and various other offices registered opposition without testimony. The only testimony in favor of the bill came from representatives of the Texas Defender Service (which represents death row inmates in habeas litigation) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Austin policy think tank that birthed the Right on Crime movement. The opposition was relatively uninspired apart from those two lobbyists, highlighting the lack of any grassroots demand for systemic change in this area. We’ll keep you posted if the bill receives a vote in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, but feel free to reach out to the members of that committee if you were unable to register your position in person this week.

And if you were unable to make Monday’s hearing, fear not! You’ll have another chance this upcoming Monday, when HB 2398 by S. Thompson will be heard. This is the omnibus version from last session that not only puts defense counsel in the grand jury room with their clients but also:

• Provides a right to full discovery for any target subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury;
• Requires recording of the grand jury proceedings and production to the defense;
• Requires prosecutors to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury;
• Provides notice to witnesses who are subpoenaed to testify to hire counsel or have counsel appointed for them;
• Bars re-presentment for the same conduct unless there is new material evidence; and
• Allows grand jury targets to sue prosecutors for vexatious litigation and recover fees and costs—even if indicted.

The hearing on HB 2398 (and more than 25 other bills, including the AG’s human trafficking legislation) starts at 2:00 p.m. or upon adjournment of the House and may run past most normal people’s bedtimes, but who ever said we were normal people? Come down and join in the fun if this bill concerns you.

DRP repeal and replace

The House Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee heard HB 2048 by Zerwas (R-Richmond) that would repeal the Driver Responsibility Program (DRP—aka the DPS surcharges) and replace it with a new $2 fee on auto insurance policies, an increase in the State Traffic Fine from $30 to $50, and—here’s the kicker—a conversion of the current DWI surcharges into mandatory State DWI Fines of $3,000 for a first offense, $4,500 for high BAC cases, and $6,000 for repeat offenders. All other surcharges are repealed, but the DWI “fines” are being kept because that is the biggest revenue generator under the current system.

Supporters of this plan include hospitals, Texas Association of Counties (TAC), and your local county commissioners, sheriffs, and JP and constables associations; opponents include the auto insurance industry, the Texas Association of Business (TAB), and various advocates for indigent offenders. Glaringly absent from the hearing—and from the many stakeholder meetings behind the scenes on this issue—were any of the courtroom lawyers and judges who will be tasked with actually raising these funds off DWI offenders, but our interpretation of this change is that these new fines can be bargained, reduced, or waived in the same manner as any other court cost, fee, or fine. We’ll let you decide for yourself what this switch from an administrative surcharge to a criminal court cost/fine will do to your misdemeanor DWI caseloads, but there is momentum to end the ill-conceived DRP program and this bill has bi-partisan support, so read the bill and let us know what you think.

Scattershots

Here are some stories and articles we don’t have time to summarize, but they might be of interest to some of you:

• Border lawmaker makes another push to put eight-liners on local ballots (Texas Tribune)
• Hemp will soon be removed from Schedule I in Texas; what does that mean? (Dallas Morning News)
• Under the Dome: Sex trafficking advocate seeks state funding (Texas Tribune video)

Floor and committee actions, etc.

We’ll update you tomorrow or this weekend on the other bills that are moving—we’ve got some catching up to do with all the craziness going on!

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted so far:

Monday, April 8

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 8:00 a.m., E2.026

• HB 896 by Tinderholt criminalizing certain abortions
• HB 1359 by Wu authorizing lawyers to bypass courthouse security upon presentation of a State Bar card
• HB 1481 by Murr creating the office of Medina County Criminal DA
• HB 2120 by Leach, the omnibus court creation bill
• HB 3976 by Leach facilitating civil enforcement of a criminal restitution order
• HB 4173 by Leach making non-substantive revisions to CCP provisions on grand juries and other statutes

House State Affairs – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, JHR 140

• HB 3457 relating to attorney fees and litigation cost assessments in PIA lawsuits
• HB 3531 by Shine clarifying procedures for the recusal of judges and prosecutors in certain investigations

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m. or upon adjournment, E2.012

• HB 324 by Murr defining “sexual contact” for improper student-educator conduct
• HB 464 by Moody expanding post-conviction scientific writs to apply to punishment evidence
• HB 545 by Nevarez expanding the offense of unlawful transfer of a firearm
• HB 1231 by Flynn lowering penalties for licensed carrying of a handgun in various locations
• HB 1316 by Moody authorizing the disclosure of criminal history records in discovery
• HB 1456 by Dominguez allowing counsel to be appointed for magistration or citation purposes
• HB 1761 by Coleman granting certain credits for time served
• HB 2342 by Dutton legalizing “location-restricted” long knives in bars, amusement parks, and churches
• HB 2344 by Dutton limiting the use of electronic communications as evidence of stalking for purposes of protective order applications
• HB 2369 by Miller increasing the punishment for theft of delivered packages
• HB 2398 by Thompson changing grand jury procedures
• HB 2421 by Smith changing which judges can issue search warrants for wireless communications devices and certain tracking equipment
• HB 2874 by Y. Davis expanding abandoning/endangering to include the elderly and disabled
• HB 2875 by Y. Davis expanding guilt/innocence evidence admissible in an exploitation trial
• HB 3453 by Clardy relating to subpoenas, orders, and warrants for certain location and wireless communication data
• HB 3500 by J. Gonzalez granting counsel for certain post-conviction writs of habeas corpus
• HB 3554 by Farrar allowing defense forensic evidence from non-accredited or -licensed witnesses
• HB 3587 by Hunter increasing the punishment for certain aggravated kidnappings
• HB 3845 by Calanni authorizing video teleconferencing for forensic analysts’ testimony at trial
• HB 3979 by Leach granting the AG prosecution authority in human trafficking cases
• HB 4157 by Anchia expanding the type of law enforcement agencies that may seek tracking and surveillance orders
• HB 4202 by Smithee authorizing the re-sentencing of any case by consent of the State and defense.
• HB 4235 by Anderson increasing the punishment for burglary of a business

Senate Water and Rural Affairs – 2:00 p.m. or upon adjournment, E1.012

• SB 970 by Creighton restricting contingent fee legal contracts by local governments

Tuesday, April 9

Wednesday, April 10

Thursday, April 11

[check our next update for bills set these dates]

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Legislative rotation sign-up

Thanks to this week’s scheduled volunteers, Midland County DA Laura Nodolf and Smith County Asst. Criminal DA Thomas Wilson, for coming to Austin this past week to keep an eye on the legislature for everyone else. (Boy, did they get an eyeful!) We still have volunteer slots open for the rest of this session, so if you want to come to Austin to interact with legislators, contact Shannon for details.

Quotes of the Week

“I do not believe that it is a proper exercise of my judgment … to proceed with the further prosecution of what I believe to have been an ill-conceived path that this District Attorney’s Office was set upon almost four years ago, and I do not believe that path should continue to be pursued.”

Barry Johnson, McLennan County DA, announcing he is dismissing all remaining criminal charges resulting from the 2015 Twin Peaks biker shootout in Waco.

“These [prosecutors] did this on their own: They targeted her and took this on lock, stock, and barrel, and investigated their own case. That’s not what prosecutors do normally. It sends a message to prosecutors across the state and the land: Don’t engage in this type of behavior, because if you do and it blows up in your face, you are going to get sued.”

Scott Palmer, plaintiff’s lawyer for former state district judge Suzanne Wooten, who is suing the former Collin County CDA and former AG (among others) in federal court for maliciously prosecuting an election fraud case. A federal court recently denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss Wooten’s lawsuit on various immunity grounds, allowing the case to proceed.

“This bill has brought some strange bedfellows together, and I’m happy to be in bed with everybody.”

Steve Bresnen, an Austin-based attorney and lobbyist, testifying before a House committee on an anti-SLAPP bill. 

“It felt like the Republicans have been turned French and equipped with a white flag.”

A tweet by Michael Quinn Sullivan, CEO of Empower Texans, during the House debate on the next state debate, which various grassroots conservative advocates lamented for being too large.

“This [bill] has gotten [Harris County] DA Kim Ogg and me on the same page. This is a bipartisan opposition.”

Montgomery County DA Brett Ligon, noting the bipartisan nature of prosecutors’ opposition to SB 1257, the bill that would give independent prosecution authority to the attorney general.

This addendum to our most recent legislative update includes notice of committee hearings on several bills that were not previously posted, including:

• HB 482 by S. Thompson (D-Houston) prohibiting arrests for fine-only offenses
• HB 1399 by Smith (R-Van Alstyne) authorizing the collection of DNA samples from certain arrestees
• HB 1771 by Thierry (D-Houston) prohibiting arrest, referral, or prosecution of a person younger than 18 for prostitution
• HB 2003 by Leach (R-Plano) limiting local governments’ contingent fee contracts
• HB 2048 by Zerwas (R-Richmond) repealing the Driver Responsibility Program
• HB 3582 by Murr (R-Junction) authorizing deferred adjudication for certain first-time DWI offenders
• HB 4189 by Middleton (R-Wallisville) limiting the duty to report suspected child abuse
• SB 891 by Huffman (R-Houston) creating various new court and prosecutor offices

Read on for details!

Updated committee hearing notices

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted for next week, with new additions in italics:

Monday, April 1

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.026

• HB 504 by Dutton providing employment protection for persons serving on grand juries
• HB 2003 by Leach requiring OAG approval of local governments’ contingency fee agreements
• HB 2730 by Leach narrowing the scope of the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA)
• HB 3336 by Leach relating to practices and procedures in civil cases
• HB 2350 by Capriglione relating to the prohibition of abortion
• HB 1531 by Neave creating a specialty court for sexual assault victim services
• HB 1196 by Meza changing statutory references from “marihuana” to “cannabis”
• HB 978 by Beckley repealing the criminal offense of homosexual conduct

House Agriculture & Livestock – 8:00 a.m., E2.036

• HB 989 by Guillen legalizing and regulating industrial hemp
• HB 1230 by Dominguez legalizing and regulating hemp and hemp products
• HB 1325 by T. King legalizing and regulating hemp and hemp products
• HB 1657 by Gutierrez legalizing and regulating hemp and hemp products

Senate State Affairs – 9:00 a.m., Senate Chamber

• SB 205 by Perry relating to lists of noncitizens excused or disqualified from jury service
• SB 362 by Huffman relating to civil commitments for outpatient treatment in criminal cases
• SB 466 by Fallon clarifying ex-felons’ ineligibility to run for certain elective offices
• SB 751 by Hughes criminalizing the creation of a deceptive video for use in an election
• SB 891 by Huffman, the omnibus court-creation and local prosecutor jurisdiction bill
• SB 903 by Hughes relating to election integrity
• SB 904 by Hughes banning the use of governmental communications for political advertising
• SB 1728 by Huffman authorizing an interim study on judicial selection methods
• SB 1887 by Huffman allowing juvenile courts to transfer cases to CPS courts

House State Affairs – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, E2.028

• HB 1784 by Capriglione requiring employee training on records storage and management
• HB 2401 by Deshotel mandating employee training on cybersecurity
• HB 2965 by Toth addressing State v. Doyal on walking quorums
• HB 3402 by Phelan addressing State v. Doyal on walking quorums
• HB 3752 by Walle relating to public information laws during catastrophic events
• HB 3834 by Capriglione requiring cybersecurity training for state and local gov’t employees

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., E2.012

• HB 15 by S. Thompson, omnibus human trafficking bill
• HB 221 by Gervin-Hawkins expanding pool of lawyers qualified for death penalty cases
• HB 261 by Frank expanding capital murder to include the murder of children under 15
• HB 300 by Murr relating to JPs’ inquest summary reports
• HB 309 by Moody creating the offense of indecent assault
• HB 335 by Dutton reducing the penalty for POM < 1 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 371 by Allen reducing the penalty for POM < 1 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 753 by Wu reducing the penalty for POM < 0.35 oz. (10g) to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 981 by Parker relating to money laundering of digital currency
• HB 1088 by Geren increasing certain habitual misdemeanor offenses
• HB 1206 by Cole reducing all marijuana possession penalties by one degree
• HB 1320 by Moody requiring mental health diversion courts in larger counties
• HB 1573 by Raney expanding capital murder to include the murder of EMS personnel
• HB 1812 by Murr revising indigent funding to counties
• HB 2130 by Walle requiring findings before ordering reimbursement for appointed counsel
• HB 2131 by Walle removing public defender’s duty to share clients’ financial condition with the court
• HB 2164 by Burns creating penalties for business owners who ban peace officers from carrying firearms
• HB 2427 by Reynolds creating a right for defense lawyers to be in the grand jury
• HB 2518 by Toth reducing the penalty for POM < 2 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 2894 by Collier relating to the prosecution of health care fraud
• HB 2937 by Sheffield enhancing aggravated assault with DW and SBI to a 1^st-degree felony
• HB 3590 by Hunter increasing punishments for various prostitution and trafficking offenses
• HB 3637 by Guillen protecting the mailing address of an applicant for an order of emergency protection
• HB 3827 by Sherman clarifying when the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs can be appointed
• HJR 108 by Canales proposing a constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis

Tuesday, April 2

House Human Services – 8:00 a.m., E2.030

• HB 3331 by Frank limiting terminations of the parent-child relationship
• HB 4188 by Middleton barring certain CPS interviews of children at school
• HB 4189 by Middleton limiting the duty to report suspected child abuse

Licensing & Administrative Procedure – 8:00 a.m., E2.028

• HB 2303 by Moody re-defining “bet” for the purposes of legalizing fantasy sports gambling

Senate Criminal Justice – 1:30 p.m., E1.016

• SB 719 by Fallon expanding capital murder to include the murder of children under 15
• SB 1147 by Buckingham authorizing medication-assisted treatment in DWI cases
• SB 1154 by Perry relating to the Texas Civil Commitment Office
• SB 1259 by Huffman adding assisted reproduction fraud to the offense of sexual assault
• SB 1820 by Huffman revising the offense of impersonating a public servant

Wednesday, April 3

House Homeland Security & Public Safety – 8:00 a.m., E2.016

• HB 107 by Raymond creating a DWI offender database at DPS
• HB 264 by Blanco requiring DPS to track and report certain border security data
• HB 482 by S. Thompson prohibiting arrests for fine-only offenses
• HB 887 by S. Thompson revising legal standards for officers’ use of force
• HB 943 by Dutton requiring peace officers to sign their offense reports and supplements
• HB 1399 by Smith authorizing the collection of DNA samples from certain arrestees
• HB 2015 by Dutton limiting the use of SWAT teams
• HB 2048 by Zerwas repealing and replacing DPS’s Driver Responsibility Program with fines
• HB 3016 by Schaefer legalizing holstered handguns in LTC licensee’s vehicles
• HB 3231 by Clardy limiting cities’ and counties’ regulation of their employees carrying at work
• HB 3800 by S. Thompson requiring the reporting of human trafficking data in larger counties

House Juvenile Justice & Family Issues – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, E2.012

• HB 1771 by Thierry prohibiting referral or prosecution for prostitution by a person under 18
• HB 3525 by Rose destroying all juvenile records of victims of sex trafficking

House Public Health – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, E2.026

• HB 75 by Minjarez creating an exception to drug paraphernalia charges for needle exchanges
• HB 1268 by Lucio III relating to dangerous wild animals

Thursday, April 4

House Corrections – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.030

• HB 1343 by Leach expanding the offense of improper inmate contact to cases with adult victims
• HB 2012 by Lucio III imposing certain conditions of supervision for animal-related offenses
• HB 3078 by S. Thompson relating to clemency for offenders who were also victims of human trafficking or family violence
• HB 3582 by Murr authorizing deferred adjudication for certain DWI offenders
• HB 3831 by Sherman banning probation revocation for certain technical violations
• HB 4044 by Dominguez changing CSCD funding for pretrial diversions

House County Affairs – 9:00 a.m., E2.028

• HB 1662 by Herrero relating to grants for monitoring family violence defendants
• HB 4468 by Coleman relating to county criminal justice reform
• HB 4567 by Coleman relating to county issues

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Things have cranked up in Austin and the volume of news is starting to come faster than ever. We apologize in advance for this long update, but there’s probably something in it to please and displease everyone, so you’ll want to read it all!

Looking ahead

Monday’s House committee schedule includes a defense-lawyer-in-the-grand-jury bill (more on that below), seven marijuana bills, four hemp bills, two death penalty bills, and a partridge in a pear tree. (OK, maybe it just feels like that to us, but you get the drift.) The House will also take up HB 3, its version of school finance reform, on Wednesday, which will consume that chamber for an entire day.

Defense lawyers in the grand jury?

The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee will hear 25 bills on Monday afternoon, including HB 2427 by Reynolds (D-Missouri City), which would grant grand jury witnesses and targets the right to have a lawyer accompany them in the grand jury room during questioning. Specifically, the filed version of the bill:

• Entitles all witnesses/targets to have a lawyer present with them in the grand jury while being questioned or offering testimony;
• Authorizes the lawyer to interrupt questioning to consult with the witness outside;
• Grants any subpoenaed witness or target a “reasonable opportunity” to lawyer up beforehand; and
• Amends the Michael Morton Act to add information obtained via grand jury proceeding to what must be disclosed under CCP Art. 39.14(h).

This concept is one that Texas prosecutors have been opposing for more than 25 years. If you find yourself in that camp, now is the time to be heard. The bill will be heard at a hearing of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee (membership here) that starts Monday at 2:00 p.m. or upon adjournment of the House. For information on how to get involved, contact Rob ASAP; it’s likely some prosecutors will meet Monday morning at the TDCAA offices to prepare for the hearing.

House budget debate

On Wednesday, the House debated and passed SB 500 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound), the supplemental appropriation bill for the remainder of this fiscal year, and HB 1 by Zerwas (R-Richmond), the House’s proposed $251 billion state budget for FY 2020–’21. The budget debate involved the consideration of more than 300 pre-filed amendments and lasted for more than 12 hours and ended after midnight, but everyone behaved themselves and there were surprisingly few fireworks.

Most of the budget drama centered on issues that don’t impact your offices. Among the issues that do impact you, we note that the House’s $9 billion supplemental appropriation bill for FY 2019 passed with a “patch” of almost $550,000 in general revenue to shore up the flagging surety bond fund. That bill now returns to the Senate with changes in other areas that will require the Senate to concur or ask for a conference committee to work out the differences before sending it to the governor. Either way, the longevity pay fix for FY 2019 looks good.

As for HB 1, the House’s version of the General Appropriations Act passed with another $1.3 million in general revenue added to the longevity pay program to prop it up for the next two years—not a long-term fix, but enough to keep things afloat while budget writers consider a new funding mechanism. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, the Finance Committee will consider its version of the General Appropriations Act today or tomorrow, and we are hopeful the $1.3 million is in the Senate bill pattern as well; we will know for sure when the committee’s final bill is unveiled by the end of the week.

Judicial branch raises

Last week the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony on a committee substitute to HB 2384 by Chairman Leach (R-Plano) which included district and county attorneys. As we told you, the filed bill (without prosecutors) was weighed down by a $47 million fiscal note, and the Office of Court Administration (OCA) is working to fund that and the new additions in the committee substitute version. Meanwhile, we have learned of an additional fiscal snag that impacts retired district attorneys.

Normally, across-the-board judicial and DA pay raises always result in retirement increases for retired prosecutors, but last week, analysts at the state’s Employee Retirement System (ERS) advised us that the amended plan in HB 2384 would increase retirement benefits for current retirees beyond what is actuarially sound for the system as a whole, an outcome that is prohibited by state laws designed to ensure the health of that retirement system. Therefore, we expect the Judiciary Committee to consider yet another committee substitute version (as yet unseen) that includes raises for district attorneys but leaves retired district attorneys pegged to the current $140,000 base salary. (Whether retired judges will similarly be frozen at existing benchmarks remains to be seen.) That committee could vote on the bill at any time, and we will keep you updated as events warrant.

Contingency fee contracts

On Monday of this week, the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony on HB 2826 by Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood). This bill would crack down on contingency fee contracts for legal services by political subdivisions (read: cities and counties) by requiring the attorney general to approve such arrangements. The hearing quickly turned into a tort reform-type battle between Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), which is for the bill, and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA) and some county attorneys, who were against the bill. Team TLR claimed the bill is needed because: 1) there is no public input on these contingency contracts; 2) they aren’t bid competitively; 3) local governments ignore the current approval process so the AG needs authority to step in; 4) counties are spending too much on legal services; and 5) the process is driven by lawyers who convince counties to sue people just to make a contingency fee.  John Odom, an Assistant Harris County Attorney, and the TTLA lawyers responded that: 1) elected officials, including the county judges and commissioners, are already accountable to voters; 2) the opioid crisis and similar problems require skilled and well-funded attorneys to represent the injured parties; 3) the bill gives the AG a veto over lawsuits that may require outside counsel; 4) ironically, the AG can enter into this kind of contract with no similar oversight or accountability; and 5) the bill’s procedures give potential defendants an unfair advantage by forewarning them of a lawsuit. After all that debate, the bill was left pending but is eligible for a vote as early as this upcoming Monday, when the committee will also hear HB 2003 by Leach (R-Plano), a similar (but narrower) bill filed by the chairman.

Changes coming to capital cases?

Three death penalty-related bills were voted from the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee earlier this week: HB 1030 by Moody (changing jury instructions in capital cases), a revised version of HB 1139 by Thompson (pre-trial determination of intellectual disability), and a revised version of HB 1936 by Rose (exempting offenders with “serious mental illness” from the death penalty). (To read the new versions of the latter two bills, select the “House committee report” version available under the “text” tab, which were still not available as this update went to press but should be uploaded soon.)

At the committee level, only HB 1936 (serious mental illness) had any significant amount of opposition registered against it (and that was from law enforcement representatives who did not provide oral testimony). HB 1139 (intellectual disability) has been tweaked to accommodate the concerns of some prosecutors, and the bill author has agreed to make at least one additional change on the House floor to address a remaining concern about the trigger for the pre-trial determination of that issue. All three of these bills now go to the Calendars Committee, which decides whether or when they will be heard by the full House.

Bail bond litigation

While interested parties watch and wait to see what the legislature does in response to various federal court orders on pre-trial release practices, the lawyers in those bail cases are still lawyering away in places like Galveston, where the ACLU has sued that county, its district court judges, and its Criminal DA, Jack Roady. The plaintiffs in that case have raised a claim that the setting of bail is a “critical stage” that triggers a defendant’s 6^th Amendment right to counsel, and the federal district judge hearing the case may support the position that the initial bail determination—even at an Article 15.17 magistration hearing—is a “critical stage” during which the defendant is entitled to counsel. The Galveston CDA is preparing a brief responding to this claim and wants to be sure other prosecutors are aware of the issue in case anyone would like to submit an amicus brief. An adverse ruling on this issue could create tremendous pressure on your (and your county’s) limited resources if bail-setting events become adversarial proceedings requiring participation by defense counsel and prosecutors.

Briefs are due in the federal litigation by Wednesday, April 3, 2019. If you are interested in preparing—or participating in the preparation of—a quick amicus brief on this issue, email Jack Roady or call him at 409/766-2354, and he will attempt to coordinate those efforts among the interested parties.

Floor action

Besides the budget bills, the House also passed the following bills over to the Senate: HB 364 by Tinderholt (ignition interlock database and criminal offense), and HB 1389 by S. Thompson (preferential treatment of defendants who are primary caregivers).

The Senate passed the following bills over to the House: SB 194 by Perry (creating offense of indecent assault) and SB 923 by Huffman (age restrictions on employees at sexually-oriented businesses).

Upcoming calendars

The following bills have been calendared for consideration on the House floor next week: HB 27 by Canales (enhancing assault of a federal law enforcement officer), HB 101 by Canales (creating a criminal offense for spoofing caller ID information), and HB 374 by Allen (probation meetings).

The following bills are eligible to be considered on the Senate floor at any point: SB 201 by Huffman (penalty enhancements during disasters) and SB 586 by Watson (officer training on trauma-informed investigations).

These lists change daily, so click on this link to access the latest House Calendar or Senate Intent Calendar.

Committee action

House bills approved by committees last week include: HB 8 by Neave (rape kit testing and storage), HB 63 by Moody (civil infraction for POM < 1 oz.), HB 64 by Canales (expunction of certain deferred adjudication records), HB 85 by M. Gonzalez (applying Romeo & Juliet defense in same-sex relationships), HB 121 by Swanson (defense to trespass with a handgun), HB 176 by Canales (prohibiting waivers of expunction/nondisclosure rights), HB 281 by Mayes (limiting lobbying activities by local political subdivisions), HB 869 by Hefner (organized criminal activity relating to credit card skimmers), HB 902 by Landgraf (enhancing assault against a pregnant woman), HB 940 by S. Davis (dog tethering), HB 979 by Hernandez (DNA collection after assault, other convictions), HB 1279 by Allen (corrections to parole instructions), HB 1355 by Button (out-of-county execution of DWI blood search warrant), HB 1625 by K. Bell (false report of misconduct by peace officer), HB 1653 by White (pre-trial diversion funding of CSCDs), and HB 1661 by Herrero (continuous family violence venue). These bills now go to the Calendars Committee, which decides which of them will be heard by the full House.

In the Senate, committees approved the following bills: SB 38 (hazing), SB 961 by Bettencourt (cite and release for criminal trespass), SB 971 by Huffman (officer training on strangulation in FV cases), and SB 1804 by Kolkhorst (entry of certain bond conditions into TCIC). These bills are now eligible to be placed on the Senate Intent Calendar at the discretion of their authors.

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted so far:

Monday, April 1

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 8:00 a.m., E2.026

• HB 504 by Dutton providing employment protection for persons serving on grand juries
• HB 2003 by Leach requiring OAG approval of local governments’ contingency fee agreements
• HB 2730 by Leach narrowing the scope of the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA)
• HB 3336 by Leach relating to practices and procedures in civil cases
• HB 2350 by Capriglione relating to the prohibition of abortion
• HB 1531 by Neave creating a specialty court for sexual assault victim services
• HB 1196 by Meza changing statutory references from “marihuana” to “cannabis”
• HB 978 by Beckley repealing the criminal offense of homosexual conduct

House Agriculture & Livestock – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.036

• HB 989 by Guillen legalizing and regulating industrial hemp
• HB 1230 by Dominguez legalizing and regulating hemp and hemp products
• HB 1325 by T. King legalizing and regulating hemp and hemp products

House State Affairs – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, E2.028

• HB 1784 by Capriglione requiring employee training on records storage and management
• HB 2401 by Deshotel mandating employee training on cybersecurity
• HB 2965 by Toth addressing State v. Doyal on walking quorums
• HB 3402 by Phelan addressing State v. Doyal on walking quorums
• HB 3752 by Walle relating to public information laws during catastrophic events
• HB 3834 by Capriglione requiring cybersecurity training for state and local gov’t employees

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., E2.012

• HB 15 by S. Thompson, omnibus human trafficking bill
• HB 221 by Gervin-Hawkins expanding pool of lawyers qualified for death penalty cases
• HB 261 by Frank expanding capital murder to include the murder of children under 15
• HB 300 by Murr relating to JPs’ inquest summary reports
• HB 309 by Moody creating the offense of indecent assault
• HB 335 by Dutton reducing the penalty for POM < 1 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 371 by Allen reducing the penalty for POM < 1 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 753 by Wu reducing the penalty for POM < 0.35 oz. (10g) to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 981 by Parker relating to money laundering of digital currency
• HB 1088 by Geren increasing certain habitual misdemeanor offenses
• HB 1206 by Cole reducing all marijuana possession penalties by one degree
• HB 1320 by Moody requiring mental health diversion courts in larger counties
• HB 1573 by Raney expanding capital murder to include the murder of EMS personnel
• HB 1812 by Murr revising indigent funding to counties
• HB 2130 by Walle requiring findings before ordering reimbursement for appointed counsel
• HB 2131 by Walle removing public defender’s duty to share clients’ financial condition with the court
• HB 2164 by Burns creating penalties for business owners who ban peace officers from carrying firearms
• HB 2427 by Reynolds creating a right for defense lawyers to be in the grand jury
• HB 2518 by Toth reducing the penalty for POM < 2 oz. to a Class C misdemeanor
• HB 2894 by Collier relating to the prosecution of health care fraud
• HB 2937 by Sheffield enhancing aggravated assault with DW and SBI to a 1^st-degree felony
• HB 3590 by Hunter increasing punishments for various prostitution and trafficking offenses
• HB 3637 by Guillen protecting the mailing address of an applicant for an order of emergency protection
• HB 3827 by Sherman clarifying when the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs can be appointed
• HJR 108 by Canales proposing a constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis

Tuesday, April 2

Wednesday, April 3

Thursday, April 4

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Legislative rotation sign-up

Thanks to this week’s volunteers, Yoakum County Criminal DA Bill Helwig and Kaufman County Criminal DA Erleigh Wiley, for coming to Austin this past week to keep an eye on the legislature for everyone else! We still have volunteer slots open for this session—including next week!—so if you want to come to Austin to interact with legislators, contact Shannon for details.

Award nominations due!

Now that the Grammys and Oscars are over, it’s time for the really BIG awards to be handed out! If you would like to nominate a TDCAA member for an Oscar Sherrell Award or the Suzanne McDaniel Award, check out this webpage and follow the instructions there. Nominations are due April 12, 2019.

New website … almost …

For the first time in over a decade, we have a new, state-of-the-art TDCAA website! This is Version 3.0 of TDCAA’s internet presence, optimized for portable use on the go from your smartphone or tablet. We are still working out the kinks during the change-over and are not yet at 100-percent functionality, but check it out at the usual address (https://www.tdcaa.com/) and let us know what you think.

Quotes of the Week

“I am very optimistic about the conversations that are going on now among lawmakers in Austin. There is no question that the majority understand that we must make substantial property tax reforms before we go back home—whether that is at the end of May, or as many special sessions as it takes.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), in an email to supporters, as reported in an article on the current status of property tax relief legislation.

“[Texas should] resist the billion-dollar pro-marijuana industry’s agenda to progressively desensitize the public to this very addictive and dangerous drug.”

Steve Dye, Grand Prairie police chief, at a Capitol press conference in which several rural and suburban police chiefs and sheriffs expressed opposition to any change in marijuana penalties.

“You can actually change the budget if you get enough support. For the most part, though, it’s a lot of theater, and it’s a lot of people trying to understand what’s happening, including the members themselves.”

Eva DeLuna Castro, budget expert with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, describing the House’s floor amendment process that leads to final passage of the state budget.

“We’ve been saying to anyone who will listen, this is homicide prevention.”

Mike Tobin, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Ohio, on the national trend of federal prosecutors enforcing firearms prohibitions against domestic violence abusers.

“Adios, Matt Rinaldi! Now he really knows what it’s like to be an immigrant—broke and without a job.”

State Rep. Ramon Romero (D-Fort Worth), speaking a party fundraiser about a former Republican state representative who, before he was defeated last November, was perhaps best known for threatening to report House gallery protestors to immigration officials. Romero later tweeted a clarification that he was only joking.

The cool kids went on Spring Break but all you got was this lousy email update.

Looking ahead

Committees are hitting their stride and the volume of bills being considered in public hearings will continue to increase, but the big news next week will be about the budget. On Wednesday (March 27), the House will take up both SB 500 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound), the supplemental appropriation bill for the remainder of this fiscal year, and HB 1 by Zerwas (R-Richmond), the House’s proposed state budget for FY 2020-21. That will consume most of the latter part of the week in the House, and then the Senate Finance Committee will debate and vote out its competing version of the budget (SB 1), so next week will be all about the Benjamins. 

Hemp and CBD products

We receive legal calls about this subject on a weekly basis, so let us provide a few updates on recent events. (Not answers, necessarily, but we hope it’s useful information.)

First, the Texas Department of State Health Services has posted an amendment to the state’s schedule of controlled substances that will remove “hemp” from Schedule I, bringing Texas’ schedules into compliance with the 2018 Federal Farm Bill. That de-scheduling excludes from the schedules’ current definitions of marijuana what the feds now define as “hemp”: namely, “the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of that plant, including the seeds there-of and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids,  salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.” (For those wondering, yes—hemp and marijuana are the same plant, hemp just has little-to-none of the stuff that gets you high.)

However, this re-definition in the schedules is not the end of the story in Texas because unlike the feds, we have both regulatory schedules made by agency rule and criminal penalty groups and related definitions codified in our Controlled Substances Act (CSA) which govern the prosecution of those laws (per Health & Safety Code §481.101). Thus, while this de-scheduling of hemp makes the definition of marijuana in DSHS’s regulatory schedules even more different than it previously was from the statutory definition of “marihuana” in the CSA, the latter still has not been changed—and that’s the law that actually makes possession or delivery of that substance a crime either as “marihuana” or as a Penalty Group 2 tetrahydrocannabinol. Only the legislature can adjust those criminal definitions, and several bills have been filed to do so—but you’ll have to check back again after the session to see what, if anything, passes. Meanwhile, this de-scheduling was published on March 15th and becomes effective 21 days later, which means that on Friday, April 5, 2019, you are going to have a lot of people claiming hemp is completely legal in Texas when in fact, it may become legal for some (scheduled) purposes but not for other (criminal) purposes.

Elsewhere, the McAllen Monitor newspaper reported last week that the Edinburg City Attorney had submitted an AG opinion request on the legality of CBD products, but no such request has been received by OAG to date. Even if submitted, the AG does not have to provide an answer until long after the legislature has adjourned, so who knows what’s up with that. We are tracking more than 100 bills impacting various criminal drug laws in Texas, so what eventually will become law is anyone’s guess.

Now you know everything we know about this topic. Good luck making sense of it!

Bill tracks

All told, we are tracking 1,617 (21 percent) of the 7,524 bills and resolutions filed to date. In other words, more than one of every five pieces of legislation filed this session has the potential to impact your work or your local courthouses. To process that vast amount of information we use 42(!)different bill tracks. Three of those tracks—Penal Code (284 bills), Code of Criminal Procedure (387 bills), and miscellaneous “Bills to Watch” (95 bills)—are available near the top of our Legislative webpage and are updated daily. To give you some flavor of what the legislature is filing, here are a dozen other tracks (listed alphabetically):

• Bail and pre-trial release (44 bills filed)
• Death penalty (23)
• Drugs and controlled substances (104)
• DWI offenses (25)
• Family violence (64)
• Human trafficking (53)
• Juveniles (53)
• New crimes (189)
• New prosecutor duties/powers/obligations (61)
• Prosecutor-proposed bills (62)
• Punishment enhancements (103)
• Sex crimes (115)

If there is a subject or category of bills for which you would like to see the full list, please contact Shannon for more information. We cannot predict which of these bills will or won’t pass, but one thing we can safely say is that there will be plenty of new laws for us to talk about during our summer Legislative Update tour! 

Help wanted

In regard to bills suggested by prosecutors, two offices are seeking your support for bills filed this session:

• House Bill 3566 by Farrar (D-Houston) would improve the investigation and prosecution of domestic violence cases by facilitating the reimbursement of medical forensic exam costs performed on strangulation victims. To receive more information or help with that bill, please contact Carvana Cloud, Asst. Harris County DA, by email or at (713) 274-0214.
• House Bill 3561 by Farrar (D-Houston) creates a new offense of Continuous Sexual Assault to provide an enhanced punishment range for serial sexual assault offenders; it would apply to victims of all ages. To receive more information or help with that bill, contact Traci Bennett, Asst. Fort Bend County DA, by email or at (281) 341-4460. 

Scattershots

Here are some stories and articles we don’t have time to summarize, but they might be of interest to some of you:

• City of Edinburg seeks AG opinion on CBD oil (The Monitor)
• Yet more attempts to address the “debtor’s prison” cycle (Texas Observer)
• Is Dan Patrick standing in the way of medical marijuana expansion? (Texas Tribune)
• Governor Abbott is shifting the direction of bail bond reform efforts (Texas Tribune)
• Senators consider creating new “groping” crime (Austin American-Statesman)
• Lawmakers eye record-breaking withdrawal from rainy-day fund (Texas Tribune)

Floor action

The following bills have been calendared for consideration on the House floor next week before they take up the budget on Wednesday: HB 364 by Tinderholt (ignition interlock database and criminal offense), HB 1389 by S. Thompson (preferential treatment of defendants who are primary caregivers), and HB 428 by Shaheen (ban on solicitation of prison pen pals).

The following bills are eligible to be considered on the Senate floor at any point: SB 194 by Perry (creating offense of indecent assault) and SB 923 by Huffman (age restrictions on employees at sexually-oriented businesses).

These lists change daily, so click on this link to access the latest House Calendar or Senate Intent Calendar. 

Committee action

House bills approved by committees last week include: HB 51 by Canales (standardized forms created by OCA), HB 93 by Canales (magistrate’s name printed on signed orders), HB 98 (revenge porn fix), HB 101 by Canales (creating offense of false caller ID), HB 226 by Krause (revisions to crimes outside the Penal Code), HB 446 by Moody (legalizing knuckles weapons), and HB 667 by King (enhancing sexual assaults involving incest). These bills now go to the Calendars Committee, which decides which of them will be heard by the full House.

In the Senate, committees approved the following bills: SB 20 by Huffman (human trafficking omnibus bill), SB 306 by Watson (sobering centers), and SB 315 by Hughes (gas pump credit card skimmers). These bills are now eligible to be placed on the Senate Intent Calendar at the discretion of their authors.

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted so far:

Monday, March 25

House Elections – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.016

• HB 1419 by S. Thompson allowing felony probationers and parolees to vote

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 8:00 a.m., E2.026

• HB 2826 by G. Bonnen limiting contingent fee contracts by local governments
• HB 2251 by Capriglione to enjoin certain deceptive legal services advertising
• HB 2259 by R. Smith relating to uncollectible criminal fees and costs
• HB 2435 by R. Smith making confidential certain personal information of judges

Senate State Affairs – 9:00 a.m., Senate Chamber

• SB 19 by Hughes permitting firearms on certain multi-family residential or commercial property
• SB 324 by Huffman relating to the disposition of certain seized firearms under CCP Art. 18.191
• SB 1640 by Watson fixing the open meetings laws struck down in State v. Doyal (2/27/19)

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., E2.012

• HB 24 by Romero making FV assault in a child’s presence a state jail felony
• HB 37 by Minjarez increasing penalties for mail theft
• HB 156 by Moody relating to supervision of certain occupational license holders
• HB 480 by Schaefer authorizing prosecutors to voir dire potential grand jurors
• HB 534 by Geren expanding the scope of public safety employee treatment programs
• HB 934 by Shaheen increasing the penalty for prostitution with a trafficked person
• HB 1216 by S. Thompson facilitating orders of non-disclosure for certain sex trade victims
• HB 1240 by Y. Davis reducing penalties for certain habitual thefts
• HB 1319 by Moody relating to Class C judgments and appeals
• HB 1381 by Wray increasing penalties for aggravated assault on school property
• HB 1539 by Geren reducing penalties for tampering with evidence in a misdemeanor case
• HB 1609 by Tinderholt making grand jurors’ names confidential
• HB 1686 by R. Smith mandating the filing of certain protective orders by prosecutors
• HB 2058 by Hernandez authorizing forfeiture funds to be used for funding services for human trafficking victims
• HB 2260 by T. King authorizing some non-lawyer JPs to issue DWI blood search warrants
• HB 2360 by Moody clarifying when arrest affidavits and warrants become public
• HB 2613 by Frullo requiring certain asset forfeiture proceeds to be used for human trafficking victim services
• HB 2731 by Miller limiting probation for certain prostitution and trafficking offenses and expanding the definition of coercion for those crimes
• HB 2768 by Martinez-Fischer on occupational licenses for DPS surcharge suspensions
• HB 2789 by Morgan creating an offense of indecency by electronic image
• HB 2823 by VanDeaver increasing penalties for assault by threat vs. certain sports participants
• HB 2951 by Guillen adding disabled adults to the outcry hearsay exception statute
• HB 3109 by Murphy expanding access to criminal justice information databases
• HB 3206 by J. Gonzalez lowering prostitution penalties and barring prosecution of persons under 18

Tuesday, March 26

Wednesday, March 27

Thursday, March 28

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Legislative rotation sign-up

We still have volunteer slots open for this session, so if you’ve thought of any new reasons to want to come to Austin to talk to your legislators, contact Shannon for details.

Award nominations due!

Now that the Grammys and Oscars are over, it’s time for the really BIG awards to be handed out! If you would like to nominate a TDCAA member for an Oscar Sherrell Award or the Suzanne McDaniel Award, check out this webpageand follow the instructions found there. Nominations are due April 12, 2019. 

Quotes of the Week

“[The lieutenant governor is] strongly opposed to weakening any laws against marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”

Alejandro Garcia, spokesman for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), when asked for a position on various medical marijuana proposals filed this session.

“Even though it sounds like we’re halfway through, it just kind of shifts into a second gear. The halfway point really isn’t the halfway point. It’s really when things start picking up.”

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), on the perceived slow pace of the legislature this session.

“[School finance and property tax reform] have to be passed. If they have to be passed in a special [session], they have to be passed in a special. I’m optimistic that we won’t have to do that. But I also told my landlord I need the place.”

Bettencourt, in the same article.

Pay raise curve ball

So much for that plan.

This past weekend, we learned that the work some of you had been doing to advocate for across-the-board judicial pay raises had fallen on deaf ears among those making the initial decisions on this matter. And sure enough, on Monday morning the House budget writers effectively removed from HB 1 the across-the-board 10-percent pay raise for judicial branch officers that had been in their baseline budget since last fall, and they replaced it with a contingency rider funding the chief justice’s judicial pay raise plan. That funding is “contingent” because it depends upon the ultimate passage of whatever is in HB 2384 by Leach (R-Plano) or its Senate companion, SB 387 by Huffman (R-Houston). As you know by now, those introduced bills include only judges, but at the hearing on his House bill yesterday, Chairman Leach laid out a committee substitute that includes elected prosecutors and county court-at-law judges in the bill. With those provisions added and with the demise of the HB 1 across-the-board pay raise, several prosecutors testified in favor of the committee substitute version of the bill (which we will refer to as CSHB 2384 to distinguish it from the filed bill that excluded prosecutors). That appears to be the only path for elected prosecutors to receive their first pay raise in 6 years, so like it or not, that’s your new plan.

Here is the most immediate problem with this new proposal: The fiscal note for the original version of HB 2384 was released before yesterday’s hearing, and even without the inclusion of prosecutors or county court-at-law judges, it weighed in at a hefty $47 million dollars for the biennium. Remember, the across-the-board 10 percent pay raise that used to be in HB 1 cost only about $30 million.

As we have mentioned before, the risk to prosecutors with this plan is that the Senate has yet to agree to add prosecutors, and it takes two to tango in the legislature. In other words, if CSHB 2384 gets to the Senate, that chamber can strip you back out and send a prosecutor-less bill back to the House without raises for you, at which point things will get very uncomfortable for everyone. But for now, your best hope for a pay raise is to (1) get in CSHB 2384 and (2) stay in CSHB 2384. On to Plan B!

There’s a lot more to this going on behind the scenes that we are not at liberty to put in writing, but if you have further questions, feel free to contact Rob. 

And now for something completely different

On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Hillman v. Nueces County, an employment law case in which the court unanimously agreed that sovereign immunity protected the county against a lawsuit from a former assistant district attorney who was allegedly fired for disclosing alleged Brady information to the defense after being ordered not to disclose the information by his superiors. However, the justices clearly were not pleased with the outcome dictated by established law on immunity, and Justice Guzman wrote a separate concurrence suggesting that the Legislature consider waiving that immunity in some form or fashion to provide this kind of plaintiff with a monetary remedy—although she was noticeably vague about what that liability should look like. And that may not be surprising, considering that this case is ultimately one centering on employment law, not criminal discovery.

Despite the civil nature of this opinion (and the court that issued it), and that fact that the original offense in question pre-dated the effective date of the Michael Morton Act, Justice Guzman’s repeated references to that law and the circumstances that led to its passage immediately drew attention in the media, and some policymakers are no doubt already searching through existing bills to find a suitable vehicle for their pet criminal discovery ideas with this new opinions as the poster child (even if it bears little relation to their actual goal). Therefore, it is very important for you to read these two short opinions, digest them, and then let your legislators know what you think is an appropriate response. We don’t claim to be employment law experts, but we are fortunate to know several—yes, you know who you are—so if you want to be part of any potential solution at this stage of the session, contact Shannon ASAP. 

That’s enough drama for one update

We’ll have more updates for you later this week as events warrant. Until then, remember: If you aren’t at the table during a legislative session, it means you are on the menu.

Don’t look now, but this regular session is half-over as of Monday. That’s the good news; the bad news is that what follows next is the lawmaking equivalent of trying to shove three pounds of sausage into a two-pound bag. Viewer (and voter) discretion is advised.

Looking ahead

Your local students may be going on Spring Break, but legislators will not—as you will realize after reading this second of two updates’ worth of committee hearing notices. We already sent you information earlier this week on the judicial branch pay raise issue and other bills set for Monday; now we’ve got another 40 bills to tell you about that are set for hearings later in the week—and that’s just what we’ve cherry-picked from the various lists. All told, 105 of the bills we are tracking this session are set for a committee hearing during the first four days of next week! Get used to that, as the next seven weeks will be a sprint until they run up against the various deadlines imposed by House and Senate rules in early May. Hold on to your hats, people, it’s about to get stormy.

So much for “limited government”

Thanks to the good people at the Texas Legislative Library, we can tell you that the 86^th Legislature has filed 7,281 bills and joint resolutions as of this session’s filing deadline, which is the second-highest total in history. (To see that history in visual form, check out their handy graphics here.) We are current tracking more than 1,300 of those bills, but it will take us a few more days to review them all. We’ll share some subject-specific lists with you next week if, for instance, you want to check up on all the bills that would impact DWI cases, firearms prosecutions, create new crimes, etc.

Lite Guv’s Top 30

The main man in the Senate released a list of his 30 priority bills this session, which you can view at this link (with further links to the bills themselves in that document). Among those you might find interesting are:

• SB 9 by Hughes relating to election integrity
• SB 11 by Taylor improving school security (+ more than $500 million to fund it!)
• SB 20 by Huffman, the omnibus human trafficking/sex trade bill this session
• SB 28 by Huffman limiting local government contingent fee agreements for legal services
• SB 29 by Hall prohibiting local governmental entities from spending public funds to interact with the Legislature with or through an association or similar entity.

Look for all of the bills on this Top 30 list to start flying through the Senate. In fact, some—like SB 20 on human trafficking—have already been heard and voted from committee within a week of being filed. The rest will soon follow suit, so if you have concerns about any of them, don’t lollygag.

Scattershots

Here are some stories and articles we don’t have time to summarize, but they might be of interest to some of you:

• Call to end cash bail in Bexar County intensifies (Texas Public Radio)
• Texas Senator proposes moving all TJJD youth to former adult facility (Texas Tribune)
• No one’s really sure how to regulate this [CBD-oil] hemp food craze (Pew Stateline)

Floor action

Now that the 60-day filing deadline has passed, both chambers can start debating and passing non-emergency bills from the floor. Check this space in future updates for more news.

Committee action

Bills approved last week by committees include: HB 892 by Kuempel (county regulation of eight-liner game rooms), SB 295 by Lucio (unlawful restraint of dogs), SB 363 (restricting certain law enforcement access to Prescription Monitoring Program information), SB 476 (municipal regulation of dogs), and SB 666 (reporting offenses that invalidate firearm possession).

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted so far:

Monday, March 18

(see our previous update, plus these additions …)

Senate State Affairs – 9:00 a.m., Senate Chamber

• SB 9 by Hughes on election integrity
• SB 21 by Huffman increasing the smoking/vaping age from 18 to 21
• SB 29 by Hall restricting local officials’ ability to lobby the legislature
• SB 346 by Zaffirini revising court cost revenue allocations

Tuesday, March 19

House Human Services – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, Room E2.030

• HB 2134 by Klick prohibiting certain medical consultations in child abuse/neglect investigations

Senate Criminal Justice – 1:30 p.m., Room E1.016

• SB 194 by Perry creating the offense of indecent assault of an adult
• SB 306 by Watson authorizing the release of intoxicated persons to a sobering center
• SB 315 by Hughes adding credit card skimming to engaging in organized criminal activity
• SB 2191 by Whitmire prohibiting pretrial detainees from being housed in out-of-state jails

Wednesday, March 20

House Homeland Security & Public Safety – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.016

• HB 1168 by Anchia creating an exception for possessing a weapon in an airport
• HB 282 by Neave requiring training on trauma-informed interviewing of sex crime victims
• HB 2146 by Kacal authorizing municipal prosecutors to carry handguns
• HB 1660 by Herrero requiring training on strangulation evidence in family violence cases
• HB 265 by Blanco requiring data collection about immigration status in traffic stops

House Higher Education – 8:00 a.m., Room E1.014

• HB 1482 by Lozano revising and expanding the criminal offense of hazing

House State Affairs – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, Room E2.014

• HB 1232 by Guillen creating the Human Trafficking Prevention Coordinating Council
• HB 1655 by Hunter limiting the withholding of DOBs under the PIA
• HB 1700 by Hunter making various information held by a current or former government officer or employee public information
• HB 2191 by Capriglione, an omnibus PIA bill
• HB 2192 by Capriglione on the assessment of litigation costs and attorney’s fees in PIA cases

House Juvenile Justice & Family Issues – 10:30 a.m. or upon adjournment, Room E2.012

• HB 1189 by Ja. Johnson imposing community service in lieu of fines for certain young offenders
• HB 1332 by Israel repealing local governments’ authority to issue juvenile curfews
• HB 1760 by White relating to confidential, sealed, and destroyed juvenile records
• HB 2027 by Bowers informing a juvenile and his family regarding the sealing of records
• HB 2343 by Dutton expanding the “Romeo & Juliet” defense to five years for high schoolers
• HB 3195 by Wu relating to certain juveniles committed to TJJD at sanction level six

Senate Veterans Affairs and Border Security – 1:30 p.m. or upon adjournment, Room 2E.20

• SB 616 by Birdwell, the DPS sunset bill

Thursday, March 21

House Corrections – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.030

• HB 1452 by S. Thompson reducing the wait before eligibility for an order of non-disclosure
• HB 1753 by Allen accelerating eligibility for early release from parole supervision
• HB 2158 by White creating a work-release program for prison inmates
• HB 2502 by Moody imposing a jail term as a condition of probation for fatal hit-and-runs
• HB 2559 by Bowers requiring a summons issue for most parole violators with new offenses
• HB 2758 by Hernandez eliminating probation and deferred adjudication for certain human trafficking and prostitution-related crimes
• HB 3120 by G. Bonnen related to the stacking of certain sex crime sentences
• HB 3296 by Allen increasing diligent participation credits for certain state jail felony inmates

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Legislative rotation sign-up

Thanks to Ector County DA Bobby Bland and Oldham County C&DA Kent Birdsong for coming to Austin last week and riding herd on several bills. We still have volunteer slots open for this session, so if you’ve found any new reasons to want to talk to your legislators, contact Shannon for details on how to get involved.

Quotes of the Week

“Our customers who come in say they don’t care what the district attorney says and they say they need the product.”

Trey Phillips, a CBD oil retailer (and former Fort Worth police officer), on whether a recent  advisory about the illegality of unregulated CBD productswould impact his business in Tarrant County.

“Like it or not, you get one bite at this apple, and you do not want to do anything to cause harm to this case, that may cause a reversal or a mistrial. Your goal right now is to get justice. That’s primary.”

Andy Kahan, director of victims services for Crime Stoppers of Houston, on how he explains to murder victims’ family members why information about those cases are not public before trial.

“We have 11 doctor shifts a day and most of the doctors tell me it’s hard to go a whole shift without seeing at least one scooter injury.”

Dr. Christopher Ziebell, ER director for Dell Seton Medical Center at UT-Austin, when asked about the increase in injuries among urban electric scooter riders.

“Court is one of those places where facts still matter.”

Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson, during her recent sentencing of Paul Manafort.

Due to a committee schedule that does not lend itself to Friday afternoon updates for those wishing to participate in committee hearings on Mondays (too late) and Thursdays (too soon), we will start sending these missives as events require in order to provide you with as much notice as possible of important events at the Capitol. (And there are some hot-button issues coming up next week!)

Judicial branch pay raise: Action item

The House version of the chief justice’s judicial pay raise bill, HB 2384 by Chairman Leach (R-Plano), will be heard in his Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee on Monday, March 18th. (See below for more details; click this link for a  list of committee members.) This may be your only opportunity to testify in a public hearing on a potential pay raise for prosecutors, so read on if this is an issue you care about.

The situation on the ground that we have described in previous updates has changed in two ways:

1. The House General Appropriations Act, HB 1, is nearing completion in the House Appropriations Committee with an across-the-board pay raise intact. Specifically, it contains a judicial and prosecutor pay raise of 10 percent, with another five percent left pending for future discussion. No other bill is required to pass to put that change take effect (as long as it stays in HB 1), which is why it is the simplest, easiest, and fairest option in our opinion. House Bill 1 will be debated on the House floor in two weeks.
2. The other option is the chief’s two-step plan requiring a change to HB 1 and the passage of the judges’ separate bill. Chairman Leach has offered to include prosecutors in his version of the bill, but only if prosecutors want to be included. We presume those changes would look similar to the judges’ proposed longevity-style pattern: Newly-elected felony prosecutors would start at a base salary of $140,000 and increase by ten percent every four years for 12 years ($154,000, then $168,000, then $182,000) effective September 1, 2019 (and applied retroactively). There also might be some increase of the county attorney supplement as well, but we have not seen any language for any of that yet. And this plan also requires the House to de-fund the across-the-board raise and replace it with this targeted, tenure-based system, plus find an additional $8–10 million to include prosecutors. That may be more lucrative for some of you if all of that can be pulled off, but (in our opinion) it is also riskier.

All that being said, the situation remains unchanged in one very important way: Senator Huffman (R-Houston) has not changed her position on refusing to allow prosecutors into her Senate version of the chief justice’s bill. This is why TDCAA’s Legislative Committee originally recommended that prosecutors support the across-the-board raises contained in HB 1 as the most viable path to getting a raise this session. As long as the Senate author—and likely member of the state budget conference committee that ultimately decides whether or how to pay for such changes—continues to limit the bill to only long-tenured judges, all bets are off in the Senate and in any eventual conference committee (which meets behind closed doors and does not permit public input).

That is a short summary of the current situation. Rob or Shannon can provide more information as needed, but TDCAA is not in a position to speak for you on your pay—only you can do that. Monday may be your “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment, so Rob will be at the TDCAA offices at 6:00 p.m. Sunday to meet with anyone interested in coming to Austin to testify for or against HB 2384 (more committee details are below). If you have thoughts or questions before then, contact Rob. 

Longevity pay status

On a much less dramatic note, the Senate followed Sen. Huffman’s lead and gave its blessing to using a one-time infusion of general revenue funds to cover the shortfall in assistant prosecutor longevity pay for this current fiscal year. That proposal—as part of SB 500 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound)—now goes to the House for final approval. That supplemental appropriation bill will be reviewed by the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, and all signs look good for this short-term fix for the longevity pay revenue gap to be approved. Once that is done, attention can shift to ensuring a similar patch for the upcoming biennium or—even better—a new, continuing revenue source that avoids the need for repeated fixes like this.

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted for next week (so far). There are plenty of interesting topics set for Monday, so feel free to weigh in on multiple topics if you come to Austin. Click on the committee name for a full agenda and more details on each bill; Shannon can give you the inside scoop on some of them as well.

Monday, March 18

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 10:00 a.m., Room E2.026 (partial list)

• HB 2384 by Leach, the chief justice’s judge-only (as of now) pay raise plan
• HB 598 by Price funding the training of certain part-time magistrates and associate judges
• HB 2955 by Price moving oversight of specialty courts to the Office of Court Administration
• HB 881 by C. Bell authorizing the parents of a deceased adult to view the body before autopsy
• HB 2737 by Wu providing judicial guidance regarding certain CPS and juvenile cases
• HB 2068 by Nevarez exempting certain tribal government/council members from jury service
• HB 900 by Israel creating a civil infraction for smoking tobacco in a vehicle with a child inside
• HB 439 by Shaheen limiting civil lawsuits against persons reporting suspicious behavior
• HB 883 by Thierry regulating internet use to obtain certain ID information of an elderly person

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 1:30 p.m., Room E2.012 (Link to committee membership list)

• HB 85 by M. Gonzalez applying the “Romeo & Juliet” defense to alleged same-sex conduct
• HB 352 by Blanco regulating law enforcement access to cell site information and the use of cell site simulators
• HB 353 by Blanco regulating law enforcement access to cell site information
• HB 442 by Morgan increasing the statute of limitations for abandoning/endangering a child
• HB 549 by Canales granting criminal parties an objection to the appointment of a visiting judge
• HB 601 by Price imposing reporting requirements related to defendants with intellectual disability
• HB 940 by Davis regulating the unlawful restraint of a dog
• HB 1030 by Moody changing the vote requirement for special issues in capital cases
• HB 1139 by S. Thompson creating a pre-trial determination of intellectual disability in capital cases
• HB 1936 by Rose creating a pre-trial determination of “serious mental illness” in capital cases
• HB 1223 by VanDeaver encouraging prosecutions for interference with child custody
• HB 1279 by Allen correcting statutory jury instructions regarding parole eligibility
• HB 1357 by Wu creating an offense for failure to report sex crimes or impair their investigation
• HB 1499 by Metcalf directing unclaimed property to certain crime victims
• HB 1996 by Leman requiring documents of certain deportation admonishments

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

Future updates

We’ll send out a more standard recap of this week’s events tomorrow or Monday. Please bear with us as we work out a more useful schedule for these updates. All of this is part of our efforts to go the extra mile to get you the information you need to be effective advocates at the capitol for yourselves, your offices, and your communities.

As you read this, hundreds of bill ideas are dying a quiet death by not being filed before today’s 6:00 p.m. deadline. We’ll have a more complete run-down of bill filings next week, but feel free to pour one out this weekend for all of the good ideas that won’t get any love from the legislature this session.

Quick update on some hot button issues

Here is a very brief update on some of the most high-profile issues we’ve been following for you this session.

Bail bond reform: The Lite Gov finally referred SB 628 by Whitmire (D-Houston) to the author’s own committee. (Such delays usually indicate a rough road ahead for such a bill, but who knows.) Elsewhere, Rep. Kacal (R-Bryan) filed HB 2020, which tracks Governor Abbott’s recommendations to limit bonds for more serious offenders, including requiring district court judges to personally review those cases. Both bills are named “The Damon Allen Act” after the same DPS trooper gunned down last year, so … yeah … that’s awkward.

Grand jury changes: Senator Whitmire (D-Houston) filed SB 1492, which is the same as Rep. Thompson’s HB 2398 (recapped last week) except the new Senate version does not (yet) include the House bill’s provisions on early discovery and lawsuits against prosecutors.

DWI deferred adjudication: SB 106 by Menendez (D-San Antonio) and its companion, HB 3582 by Murr (R-Junction), are similar to last session’s legislation. Comal County CDA Jennifer Tharp is once again spearheading efforts to get this across the finish line. If you would like to help her and want updates on the bill’s progress, email her at [email protected]. 

Intellectual disability and the death penalty: Expect HB 1139 by S. Thompson (D-Houston) to get a hearing as soon as the week of March 18th. Some prosecutors have suggested changes to provisions on the timing of the pre-trial hearing, a right to appeal, and the definition of ID, but it’s too soon to tell how that will all shake out.

DRP repeal: Multiple bills have been filed to repeal the Driver Responsibility Program, but the ones most likely to pass (if any) are HB 2048 by Zerwas (R-Richmond) or its identical companion, SB 918 by Huffman (R-Houston). The initial problem with the filed versions of those bills is that they merely replace the current massive DWI-related surcharges with similarly massive mandatory DWI state fines, making it even less likely anyone will ever plead to those offenses. However, this discussion is far from over, so keep watching them for changes as they move through the system.

State jail reform: We haven’t had time to process various reform proposals on this topic because they are all being filed at the deadline, which does not bode well for the fate of any of them. More on this in future weeks.

Judicial branch pay update

On Monday, the full House Appropriations Committee adopted its subcommittee’s recommendation to include in HB 1 a 10-percent across-the-board pay raise for various elected judges and prosecutors (plus another five-percent increase they could consider later, at an additional cost of ~$12 million). That continues to be the best chance for elected prosecutors to receive increased compensation this session. We are getting feedback from the Capitol that many of you are taking the initiative to make that happen, but if you have not already done so, please refer to our past recommendations on this topic and call or email Rob if you have any questions.

Elsewhere, the Senate approved SB 3 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound), an emergency item that gives classroom teachers and librarians a $5,000 annual pay raise. However, that proposal is expected to find less favor in the House, which prefers to push funds down to school districts without specific earmarks. In light of that disagreement, we’ll let you decide for yourselves whether you think both chambers will be amenable to granting as much as $42,000 in raises to certain long-tenured judges, as some of them have requested. 

“Texas Prosecution 101”

Every few years we have to dust off and re-issue our little white paper on who prosecutes what under the Texas Constitution. We call it our “Prosecution 101” paper, the latest copy of which you can find on our website here. You might want to keep it handy for this next part.

If you recall, over the summer the Senate State Affairs Committee considered whether the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) should be tasked with prosecuting human trafficking (and abortion-related) crimes. The committee’s conclusion, as stated in its interim report, was to support concurrent jurisdiction for OAG and local prosecutors in trafficking cases—but without specifying if it meant original concurrent jurisdiction for OAG, or merely the existing arrangement we enjoy now. Then we told you earlier this session that OAG was asking for more than a dozen new employees to investigate and prosecute human trafficking (more on that below). And last week, yet another piece of the potential puzzle was filed: SB 1257 by Huffman (R-Houston) could allow OAG to independently investigate human trafficking cases in your communities and independently prosecute those cases in your courthouses.

As filed, SB 1257 gives OAG original criminal jurisdiction in human trafficking cases that: 1) occur in more than one county; 2) occur in Texas as well as another state or country; or 3) are facilitated by the use of the U.S. mail, email, telephone, fax, the internet, or a wireless communication between counties or a Texas county and another state or country. (In other words, the AG will have original criminal jurisdiction in pretty much every human trafficking case.) Furthermore, if a human trafficking case *is* limited to a single county, the bill requires the local prosecutor to notify OAG within 14 days of becoming aware of that conduct and, if the local prosecutor decides not to pursue charges, you get another 14 days to notify OAG of that fact—upon which news OAG can then step in and prosecute a case you declined.

How does that strike you?

Here are our initial thoughts. First, some prosecutors have already raised concerns about the constitutionality of that arrangement. (See the white paper for details.) Second, Texas prosecutors have always enjoyed a good working relationship with OAG prosecutors, so rather than focus on issues of jurisdiction, authority, or a race to the courthouse, we think you’d prefer to talk about how you can get the most out of the existing partnership with OAG to ensure effective investigations and prosecutions. And third, there is probably a good reason why the state doesn’t already have two independent prosecuting offices with the authority to represent the State in the same cases, in part because it can only lead to trouble down the road as soon as the defense bar realizes that the first witness they should call in any case declined at the local level is the local DA who had reservations about the case. (Won’t those be some fun Brady hearings?)

All that being said, the initial language in SB 1257 is just that—a starting point for various interested parties to begin talks over how best to improve the state’s response to this issue that has captured the attention of policymakers. (Ditto for its identical House companion, HB 3979 by Leach [R-Plano], filed yesterday). It will be up to you to educate them on what the most appropriate response should be. 

Human trafficking funding

While we are on this topic, note that the Senate State Affairs Committee recently voted out SB 72 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound) to create a new Human Trafficking Prevention Coordinating Council consisting of various legislative and executive branch members and chaired by the attorney general. Among the purposes of this council will be to devise a statewide strategy for combatting human trafficking and to oversee state expenditures on that topic—up to $89 million spread among seven state agencies to hire personnel to investigate, prosecute, and prevent trafficking, if the Senate gets its way.

But across the rotunda, the House Appropriations Committee appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach to financing more human trafficking prevention efforts. On Monday, that committee moved all $75 million of its proposed human trafficking appropriations to Article XI, also known as the “wish list,” in their proposed budget (HB 1). That amount includes funding for 13 additional AG prosecutors and staff, 41 TABC agents, and 204 DPS officers who were to be assigned to new anti-human trafficking and gang task forces. These items aren’t dead, they are merely tabled, but this means they could become points of negotiation with the Senate budget writers when the final details are hammered out in late May.

Up(date) in smoke

The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee took testimony earlier this week on HB 63 by Moody (D-El Paso) to change possession of less than one ounce of marijuana into a civil infraction. Several hours of testimony on the bill can be boiled down to this: Some law enforcement agency witnesses think marijuana should remain a crime, other public witnesses think marijuana should be something less than a crime, and no one—not one witness—talked about the actual mechanics of the bill or how it would work in real life. This is a good example of how a policy narrative can sometimes overwhelm the nuts-and-bolts details of an issue—but remember, should something like this pass, those details will be left up to y’all to sort out. And while its fate in the Senate is cloudy, it does have some bi-partisan support in the House, so now is a good time to read the bill and what it does or doesn’t do. Look for this committee to take up various other marijuana-related bills later in the session—including proposals to make possession of small amounts a Class C misdemeanor—but for now, this is the bill for marijuana reform in Texas this session.

Scattershots

• Hemp farms in Texas? Ag Commissioner among backers (KUT News)
• Immigration, border security top voters’ worries (Texas Tribune)
• Guns are popular in Texas, but so are “red flag” laws (Texas Tribune) 

Committee action

The bills we told you about last week are all now pending in their House committees, most of which seem to be in no hurry to spit them back out. Among the bills did receive approval in a committee are: HB 234 by Krause (limiting local regulation of kids’ lemonade stands), HB 448 by Turner (penalties for failing to use rear-facing child car seats), SB 40 by Zaffirini (court proceedings following disasters and evacuations), SB 71 by Nelson (telemedicine for sexual assault exams), SB 73 by Nelson (protecting personal information of judges), SB 201 by Huffman (penalty enhancements during natural disasters), SB 341 by Huffman (ban on appointing non-prosecutors as attorneys pro tem), and SB 415 by Huffman (no plea in absentia in Class C family violence cases). 

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted for next week (so far).

Monday, March 11

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., Room E2.012

• HB 64 by Canales authorizing expunction of most misdemeanor convictions after five years
• HB 121 by Swanson creating “oral warning” defenses to 30.06 and 30.07 trespasses
• HB 176 by Canales prohibiting waivers of nondisclosure and expunction rights
• HB 465 by White relating to fee and cost waivers
• HB 566 by White expanding eligibility for orders of nondisclosure
• HB 691 by White expanding eligibility for orders of nondisclosure for repeat offenders
• HB 756 by Wu restricting the State’s right to jury punishment
• HB 869 by Hefner relating to organized criminal activity involving credit card skimmers
• HB 902 by Landgraf increasing punishments for assaulting pregnant women
• HB 929 by Anchia creating an admonishment for military service/discharge
• HB 1202 by Collier excluding certain rent-to-own violations from theft of service
• HB 1625 by K. Bell creating the offense of false report of misconduct against first responders
• HB 1661 by Herrero clarifying the scope of and venue for continuous violence against the family

Tuesday, March 12

House Licensing & Administrative Procedures – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.028

• HB 1544 by Raymond legalizing fantasy sports contests

Senate Criminal Justice – 1:30 p.m., Room E1.016

• Organizational meeting; invited testimony only.

Wednesday, March 13

House Homeland Security & Public Safety – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.016

• HB 629 by Landgraf creating a protective order registry
• HB 830 by Israel authorizing the release of intoxicated persons to sobering centers
• HB 1145 by Krause repealing the Driver Responsibility Program
• HB 1544 by Chen Button relating to the execution of a DWI blood search warrant

Thursday, March 14

House Corrections – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.030 (not posted yet)

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details. 

New bills

To give you an idea of the volume of bills being filed before today’s deadline, the past four days have seen 264, 350, 532, and 911 bills filed, respectively. Thus, it should come as no surprise that we are still hundreds of bills behind in our reading. As of now we are tracking 1,172 (18% percent) of the 6,396 bills filed through yesterday. Please remember that if you call to ask about a bill by number and it doesn’t immediately register with us. (Heck, our own kids’ names no longer register with us after having to review all these bills!)

Next week

Now that the bill-filing deadline is over, legislators can focus on committee hearings and doing something on the floor other than recognizing visiting dignitaries and congratulating high school football teams for winning a state championship. (We have enough of those to last us at least half a session, but we’ll save our rant about the UIL’s everyone-gets-a-championship-trophy dilution of our state sport for another day.)

Legislative rotation sign-up

Thanks to Nacogdoches County Attorney John Fleming and Asst. CA Stephanie Stephens for coming to Austin this past week and riding herd on several bills. We still have a few slots open for later this session, so if you’ve found any new reasons to want to talk to your legislators, contact Shannon for details on how to get involved. 

Quotes of the Week

“What is illegal in the real world must be illegal in the digital world, and this legislation is a first step in the right direction in adding that accountability.”

Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO of Bumble (an online dating app catering to women), in support of HB 2789 by Meyer (R-Dallas), which would make it a Class C misdemeanor to send unsolicited lewd electronic images to another person.

“I just think in 2019, as a country, we don’t need to be ‘springing forward’ and ‘falling back’ just because we did it in World War I to save energy. We just need to pick a time and stick with it.”

State Sen. Jose Menendez (D-San Antonio), in an article discussing his SB 190, which would end Texas’ participation in daylight savings time. [Don’t forget to set your clocks forward on Sunday!]

This week various legislative committees will discuss marijuana decriminalization, incest, the legalization of eight-liner game rooms, and more. Who says civics is boring? Read on for details.

Judicial branch pay update

We sent everyone an update on judicial pay issues yesterday. If you did not receive it, contact Shannon for a copy.

House Appropriations

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Articles I, IV and V chaired by Rep. Oscar Longoria (D-Mission) held a series of working group meetings over the past two weeks to hammer out the final details on the budgets for various general government agencies, the judiciary, and the public safety agencies. We won’t know the outcome until Monday, when the subcommittee reports to the full Appropriations Committee and seeks a formal vote on the subcommittee’s proposals. We won’t have access to the subcommittees working documents until then, but some items that are still pending include: additional funding for visiting judges; additional staff positions for various courts; and $12 million to fund an additional five percent across-the-board judicial pay raise on top of the 10 percent raise already in the baseline budget. We’ll continue to share relevant budget news as the session progresses, including what happens in the Senate Finance subcommittees (which are moving a littler slower than their House counterparts).

Assistant prosecutor longevity pay

Not much new to report. We want to thank Senator Joan Huffman (R-Houston) and Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound) for voicing their support for the program and seeking ways to get it on a solid footing going forward. We are monitoring a patch for the final quarter of FY 2019 and a fix for the FY 2020-21 biennium shortfalls. No word yet on a permanent solution, but we are hopeful legislators will identify a reliable funding stream in the near future.

Grand jury “reform” bill filed

Check out HB 2398 by Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston). It’s the sequel to last session’s HB 2640 by Thompson (and then-companion SB 1424, which got watered down before dying in the House). Ms. Thompson has been pushing for an attorney in the grand jury off and on since 1991, but this is perhaps the most far-reaching bill she has filed on this topic. Here are some details:

• Every witness or target of an investigation is entitled to a lawyer in the grand jury
• A target is entitled to full discovery before appearing before a grand jury
• All witness questioning and testimony must be recorded
• If a person is no-billed, a second grand jury may not investigate or return an indictment against that previously investigated person absent new, material evidence
• The State must present all exculpatory evidence to the grand jury
• Regardless of whether a grand jury returns a true bill or no bill, the target/defendant can sue the prosecutor for attorney’s fees and other related expenses which shall be awarded if the court finds that “the position of the prosecutor was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.”

Prosecutors’ views on this proposal last session were consistent with prosecutors’ views over the past three decades: Granting a witness or target of an investigation the absolute right to have an attorney in the grand jury room is bad public policy, so there is really nothing prosecutors can agree to or negotiate. Only time will tell how interested this legislature is in considering that policy once again, but if this issue is important to you, be sure to read the text of the bill and dust off that well-worn copy of your talking points.

Tap the brakes

Some of you may have heard from your clerks that TDCAA is recommending they stop collecting the time payment fee authorized by Local Gov’t Code §133.103, which was partially struck down by the 14^th Court of Appeals in Johnson v. State (issued Feb. 4, 2019) (for details, see our case summaries entry for that week). We’ll spare you the Telephone Game explanation for how things got confused, but know that TDCAA has *not* made any such recommendation (nor has the Office of Court Administration). No mandate has issued from the courts in this matter. Furthermore, the State Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will likely seek a motion for rehearing and, failing that, petition the Court of Criminal Appeals for further review. This court cost and others like it are also at play in some bills before the Legislature, so our wisest counsel right now is to let things play out to the end before taking action. If you have further questions about this, please contact Shannon or Stephanie at TDCAA. 

Scattershots

Here are some stories and articles we don’t have time to summarize, but they might be of interest to some of you:

• Where control of the next Texas Legislature will be decided (Texas Tribune)
• Under the Dome (video): Where lawmakers go to wine, dine, and deal (Texas Tribune)
• What do cops want from lawmakers? (KERA News)
• Growing support for Texas to decriminalize marijuana (Texas Tribune)

Floor action

Bills on issues designated as an “emergency” are now reaching the Senate floor, as SB 3 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound) to give classroom teachers a pay raise and SB 10 by Nelson to create a Texas Mental Health Care Consortium are both on the Senate calendar for Monday. (Not on that calendar is SB 2, the property tax reform bill, which currently lacks the votes it needs to be considered under the Senate’s three-fifths rule.) It will be several weeks before any non-emergency items can be debated on the House or Senate floor, but take this as yet another sign that the legislature is finally getting to work in earnest.

Committee action

The bills we told you about last week are all now pending in their House committees, where the usual practice is to lay out a bill, debate it, and then let it simmer for a week before taking an up-or-down vote on it. Some bills heard yesterday on short notice in Senate State Affairs were also left pending; we’ll report anything that comes out of that committee when it happens.

Upcoming committee hearings

Here are summaries of the relevant committee notices posted for next week (so far). Click on the underlined hyperlink for a full listing of each notice, including bill information (such as the actual text of a proposal) that can be accessed by clicking on any bill number in the notice.

Monday, March 4

House Criminal Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., Room E2.012

• HB 27 by Canales increasing penalties for assaulting a federal officer
• HB 63 by Moody making possession of < 1 oz. of marijuana a civil infraction
• HB 86 by Martinez creating the offense of reckless discharge of a firearm
• HB 446 by Moody removing knuckles from the list of prohibited weapons
• HB 521 by Dutton requiring additional information in the charging instrument for resisting arrest
• HB 667 by K. King increasing the penalty for sexual assault involving incest
• HB 760 by Wu increasing the penalty for theft of delivered packages (aka “porch piracy”)
• HB 1028 by Guillen increasing the penalties for certain offenses during disasters

House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – 2:00 p.m., Room E2.026

• HB 354 by Herrero exempting fire fighters and police officers from jury duty

Tuesday, March 5

House Licensing and Administrative Procedures – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.028

• HB 78 & HJR 18 by Raymond authorizing local option elections to legalize certain eight-liner operations
• HB 892 by Kuempel authorizing a county to regulate and tax local game rooms

House Business & Industry – 10:30 a.m., Room E2.016

• HB 427 by Shaheen basing the penalty for price tag tampering on the value of the tagged item

Wednesday, March 6

House Homeland Security & Public Safety – 8:00 a.m., Room E2.016

• HB 8 by Neave expanding the collection and testing of rape kits; changing statutes of limitation
• HB 616 by Neave relating to payment for rape kit collection and storage
• HB 979 by Hernandez authorizing the collection of DNA from certain defendants
• HB 1177 by Phelan authorizing the carrying of a handgun during a declared state of disaster

If you want to learn more about a bill or find out how to get involved for or against it, contact Shannon for details.

New bills to watch

We are now tracking 1011 (23% percent) of the 4,352 bills filed through yesterday. Here is another list highlighting some of the more interesting bills filed in the past few days:

• HB 15 by S. Thompson, the omnibus human trafficking bill
• HB 2158 by White authorizing work release for certain TDCJ inmates
• HB 2200 by S. Thompson narrowing the scope of drug-free zone enhancements
• HB 2260 by T. King authorizing some non-lawyer JPs to issue blood search warrants in DWIs
• HB 2303 by Moody narrowing the definition of “bet” to exclude fantasy sports wagering
• HB 2339 by Meza requiring bond conditions in violent offenses to be entered in TCIC
• HB 2360 by Moody defining “execute” for the purposes of making arrest affidavits public
• HB 2421 by R. Smith authorizing certain judges to issue search warrants for wireless devices
• HB 2432 by Raney creating a “Good Samaritan” defense to possession of controlled substances
• HB 2481 by Metcalf authorizing deferred adjudication for DWI offenders in veterans’ courts
• HB 2491 by Wu prohibiting the transfer of juveniles to TJJD for state jail felony offenses
• SB 989 by Watson imposing jail time as a condition of probation for hit-and-run deaths
• SB 993 by Powell increasing penalties for family violence assault in the presence of a child
• SB 1018 by Alvarado requiring family violence offenders to surrender firearms
• SB 1125 by Hinojosa authorizing video teleconference testimony by a forensic analyst
• SB 1257 by Huffman authorizing the AG to unilaterally prosecute human trafficking cases
• SB 1305 by Huffman increasing penalties for assaulting a pregnant woman

To read any bill, go to https://capitol.texas.gov/, enter the bill number in the appropriate field, and click “go”—then on the subsequent webpage, select the tab at the top of the page for the information (history, bill text, actions, authors, etc.) you want. And as always, you can contact Shannon or Rob if you are having trouble finding the information you seek.

Next week

After lagging behind past sessions’ rate of bill filing, legislators made up for it with a vengeance this past week by filing more than 1,000 bills, and they will continue that torrid pace by filing 2,000–3,000 more bills before next Friday’s deadline. (As a result, we will waive the white flag and give up trying to highlight individual bill filings in the list above.) Meanwhile, committees will continue to increase their workload and start working into the evenings, so if you see any of our family members out and about, be sure to tell them we’re still alive and manning our posts at the capitol.

Legislative rotation sign-up

If you are interested in coming to Austin this session, please contact Shannon for details on how to get involved. We have several slots available for prosecutors to come to Austin and help craft the laws and appropriations that directly impact you, so check your calendar and find a good time to come to hang out with us.

Domestic Violence Seminar

Registration is now open for TDCAA’s 2019 Domestic Violence Seminar. Whether you are new to prosecution or a seasoned hand, this course will cover practical skills you need to do your job today. From intake to advocacy, this is domestic violence training developed for Texas prosecutors and presented by Texas prosecutors. Join us in Georgetown, Texas, from April 9th to the 12th for this exciting training opportunity. For more information, please click here.

Quotes of the Week

“The Court of Criminal Appeals has wrestled with this issue for the 30 years I’ve been a lawyer. It will be good to have some finality on the topic.”

Harris County DA Kim Ogg, in an article discussing whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s second ruling in the Bobby James Moore case will prod the state legislature into adopting a statutory scheme for determining intellectual disability in capital cases. [For legislation already filed on that topic, see HB 1139 or its companion, SB 418.]

“Yet another perfectly good statute falls today, adding fuel to the claims that this court is often too quick to reject the considered will of our state’s Legislative Department.”

Court of Criminal Appeals judge Kevin Yeary, in his dissent to the majority opinion in State v. Doyal that struck down part of the state’s Open Meetings Act for being unconstitutionally vague this week.

“I love it because it’s driving some people crazy and we’re having a blast working together.”

Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), describing his relationship with the governor and lieutenant governor in a radio interview