BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 1874

By: Noble

Criminal Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Civil asset forfeiture is a valuable tool for law enforcement agencies. However, sometimes lawful Texans have their property seized and are then required to pursue a costly legal process to get that property back. C.S.H.B. 1874 seeks to address this issue by making a law enforcement agency responsible for a wrongful seizure and allowing a judge to award reasonable attorney's fees to the rightful property owner that the law enforcement agency would be required to pay.

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 this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 1874 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to require a court, after the commencement of discovery in a civil asset forfeiture proceeding and on the court's determination that the property or an interest in the property is not subject to forfeiture, to enter an order requiring the law enforcement agency responsible for seizing the property to reimburse the applicable owner or interest holder for reasonable attorney's fees calculated in accordance with a schedule of attorney's fees put forth by the Office of Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System (OCA) required to be developed under the bill's provisions. The bill requires the law enforcement agency, if possible, to make the payment out of money available in the applicable special fund established for the agency from forfeited property or the sale of that property.

C.S.H.B. 1874 amends the Government Code to require OCA to promulgate a schedule of attorney's fees that may be used to determine the reasonable amount of attorney's fees to award an applicable owner or interest holder on the court's determination that the property or an interest in the property is not subject to forfeiture.

C.S.H.B. 1874 applies only to property subject to forfeiture on the basis of an offense committed on or after the bill's effective date. The bill provides for the continuation of the law in effect before the bill's effective date for purposes of an offense, or any element thereof, that occurred before that date.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.

COMPARISON OF INTRODUCED AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 1874 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.

The substitute changes what triggers the requirement for a court to enter an order requiring the law enforcement agency to reimburse an applicable owner or interest holder from dismissal of the forfeiture proceeding, as in the introduced, to the commencement of discovery in the proceeding.

The substitute conditions the requirement on both the commencement of discovery and the court's determination that the property or an interest in the property is not subject to forfeiture, whereas in the introduced, the requirement was triggered either on dismissal of the proceeding or on the court's determination that the property or an interest in the property was not subject to forfeiture.