BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 1182

By: Harless

Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The Office of Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System collects judicial data for all Texas courts. For justice and municipal courts, reports are filed individually by each court and the information within them is extensive, including data about bench and jury trials, dismissals, acquittals, and other topics. For the criminal county, district, and statutory county courts, each county files a consolidated report. Currently there are no rules or requirements that provide for the criminal courts to report data in the same individual format as the lower courts, leaving much of this information hidden from the public and the voters who elect judges for each of these courts. C.S.H.B. 1182 seeks to take a step toward addressing this issue by requiring monthly statistics to be gathered for each trial court and providing for regular, online publication of judicial information.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that rulemaking authority is expressly granted to the Texas Judicial Council in SECTION 2 of this bill.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 1182 amends the Government Code to specify that the judicial statistics gathered by the Texas Judicial Council (TJC) from the state's judges and court officials and reported to the Office of Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System (OCA) must include monthly court activity statistics for each trial court in Texas. The bill requires OCA to publish in a searchable format on its public website the information for each court from the monthly statistics reports submitted to OCA. The bill also requires a court official for each court in a county with a population greater than one million to submit a copy of each such monthly report for the court to the appropriate county official no later than the 20th day of the month following the month reported. The county must publish that information in a searchable format on the county's public website. The bill removes a requirement for copies of monthly reports to be maintained in the office of the appropriate district or county clerk for a period of at least two years and be available to the public for inspection and reproduction. The bill requires the TJC to adopt any rules necessary to implement the bill's provisions.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.

COMPARISON OF INTRODUCED AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 1182 may differ from the introduced in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

While both the introduced and substitute require the TJC to gather certain judicial information, the substitute changes the information required from case-level information on the amount and character of the civil and criminal business transacted by each district court, statutory county court, county court, municipal court, and justice court to monthly court activity statistics for each trial court in Texas.