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House Bill 2086 |
House Author: Moody |
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Effective: See below |
Senate Sponsor: Whitmire |
House Bill 2086 enacts a number of provisions relating to the investigation, prosecution, and punishment for certain gang-related and other criminal offenses. The bill amends the Penal Code to add certain offenses relating to escaping from custody and an offense relating to prohibited substances and items in a correctional or detention facility or on property of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or the Texas Youth Commission to the offenses that constitute an organized criminal activity under certain circumstances. The bill creates the first-degree felony offense of directing activities of certain criminal street gangs.
Current law set the punishment for criminal solicitation of a minor at one category lower than the solicited offense. The bill increases the punishment to the same category as the solicited offense if the actor was 17 years of age or older at the time of the offense and committed the offense to further the activities of a criminal street gang or to avoid detection as a member of a criminal street gang.
House Bill 2086 amends the Penal Code to enhance the penalty for certain organized criminal activity committed in or around a gang-free zone and provides that a map from a municipal county engineer is admissible as evidence of a gang-free zone. The bill amends the Education Code and the Human Resources Code to require information regarding gang-free zones be included in the student handbook or equivalent publication of each public or private elementary or secondary school and institution of higher education and be distributed to the parents and guardians of children who attend each day-care center and to make these provisions effective June 16, 2009.
House Bill 2086 amends provisions of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code addressing certain gang activity through public nuisance laws to create a civil action for the violation of an injunction by a criminal street gang or member. A district, county, or city attorney or the attorney general may sue for and recover actual damages, civil penalties, and court costs and fees. The property of a criminal street gang or its members is subject to seizure under certain conditions. Money received for damages or as a civil penalty must be used for the benefit of the community or neighborhood harmed.
House Bill 2086 amends provisions of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Health and Safety Code, and Local Government Code relating to graffiti offenses. The bill provides that the Texas Tort Claims Act does not apply to a claim for property damage caused by the removal of graffiti, allows a local ordinance that requires a business to make aerosol paint inaccessible without customer assistance, and sets forth the responsibilities of property owners for graffiti removal.
House Bill 2086 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to make the proceeds of organized criminal activity subject to forfeiture proceedings. The bill requires the judge to make an affirmative finding in the judgment of a case if it is determined that the applicable conduct was engaged in as part of the activities of a criminal street gang and authorizes the sentences for more than one conviction of an offense with such a finding to run concurrently or consecutively. The bill includes an active member of a criminal street gang in the persons whom a defendant placed on community supervision may be required to avoid. The bill authorizes a court granting community supervision to a member of a criminal street gang who is a repeat offender to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of community supervision and restrictions on the defendant's operation of a motor vehicle. The bill authorizes a parole panel to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of release on parole or mandatory supervision on a member of a criminal street gang who is a repeat offender. The bill requires a juvenile court to order a child adjudicated as having engaged in gang-related conduct to participate in a criminal street gang intervention program.
House Bill 2086 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to include evidence that an individual has used the Internet or another electronic format to post photographs or other documentation identifying the individual as a member of a criminal street gang, evidence that an individual has visited a known member of a criminal street gang while the member was confined or committed to a penal institution, and evidence of an individual's use of technology to recruit new criminal street gang members in the evidence included in the criminal combination and criminal street gang intelligence database. The bill increases, from three years to five years, the period that information in the database may be retained. The bill sets forth requirements and procedures for an order authorizing the interception of oral, wire, or electronic communication.
House Bill 2086 amends the Government Code to create a public corruption unit within the Department of Public Safety to address allegations of organized criminal activity by a Texas peace officer or a federal law enforcement officer while performing duties in Texas. The bill requires the governor's criminal justice division to administer the Texas anti-gang grant program to support regional, multidisciplinary approaches to combat gang violence and sets forth the requirements of the program.
House Bill 2086 amends the Transportation Code to establish that, if conduct constituting an offense of false application, use of an illegal license or certificate, or delivery or manufacture of a counterfeit instrument also constitutes an offense under another law, the actor may be prosecuted under either law or both laws.
House Bill 2086 takes effect September 1, 2009, except that the Education Code and Human Resources Code provisions take effect June 19, 2009.