1-1 By: Farrar (Senate Sponsor - Moncrief) H.B. No. 3256
1-2 (In the Senate - Received from the House April 19, 1999;
1-3 April 20, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
1-4 Criminal Justice; May 11, 1999, reported favorably by the following
1-5 vote: Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 11, 1999, sent to printer.)
1-6 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-7 AN ACT
1-8 relating to the exchange of information related to a special needs
1-9 offender.
1-10 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11 SECTION 1. Section 614.017, Health and Safety Code, is
1-12 amended to read as follows:
1-13 Sec. 614.017. EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION. (a) An agency
1-14 [authorized by this chapter to provide continuity of care for a
1-15 special needs offender] may:
1-16 (1) receive information relating to a special needs
1-17 offender regardless of whether other state law makes that
1-18 information confidential, if the agency receives the information to
1-19 further the purposes of this chapter; or
1-20 (2) disclose information relating to a special needs
1-21 offender, including information about the offender's identity,
1-22 needs, treatment, social, criminal, and vocational history,
1-23 supervision status and compliance with conditions of supervision,
1-24 and medical and mental health history, if the agency discloses the
1-25 information to further the purposes of this chapter.
1-26 (b) This section is not intended to conflict with a federal
1-27 law that restricts the disclosure of information described by
1-28 Subsection (a).
1-29 (c) In this section:
1-30 (1) "Agency" includes any of the following entities [a
1-31 division within an agency], a person with an agency relationship
1-32 with one of the following entities [an agency], and a person who
1-33 contracts with one or more of the following entities:
1-34 (A) the institutional division of the Texas
1-35 Department of Criminal Justice;
1-36 (B) the pardons and paroles division of the
1-37 Texas Department of Criminal Justice;
1-38 (C) the community justice assistance division of
1-39 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice;
1-40 (D) the state jail division of the Texas
1-41 Department of Criminal Justice;
1-42 (E) the Texas Department of Mental Health and
1-43 Mental Retardation;
1-44 (F) the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission;
1-45 (G) the Texas Youth Commission;
1-46 (H) the Texas Rehabilitation Commission;
1-47 (I) the Texas Education Agency;
1-48 (J) the Criminal Justice Policy Council;
1-49 (K) the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug
1-50 Abuse;
1-51 (L) the Commission on Jail Standards;
1-52 (M) the Texas Department of Human Services;
1-53 (N) the Texas Department on Aging;
1-54 (O) the Texas School for the Blind and Visually
1-55 Impaired;
1-56 (P) the Texas Department of Health;
1-57 (Q) the Texas Commission for the Deaf and Hard
1-58 of Hearing;
1-59 (R) community supervision and corrections
1-60 departments;
1-61 (S) personal bond pretrial release offices
1-62 established under Article 17.42, Code of Criminal Procedure; and
1-63 (T) local jails regulated by the Commission on
1-64 Jail Standards [an agency].
2-1 (2) "Special needs offender" means an individual for
2-2 whom criminal charges are pending or who after conviction or
2-3 adjudication is in custody or under any form of criminal justice
2-4 supervision [a convicted felon or an individual who is placed on
2-5 community supervision after a grant of deferred adjudication under
2-6 Section 5, Article 42.12, Code of Criminal Procedure].
2-7 SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the
2-8 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-9 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-10 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-11 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-12 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-13 passage, and it is so enacted.
2-14 * * * * *