BILL ANALYSIS
By: Brown, Betty
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Most rural residents place 911 addresses or identifiers on their mailboxes. When these are destroyed, emergency responders such as police, fire, and emergency medical personnel have difficulty finding residences when called for emergencies. Often residents become frustrated with the frequency of the destruction and do not replace them. Emergency responders are sometimes left with descriptions of the residences that may or may not be visible from the roadway. Because many of the offenders are teenagers, the bill would require an offender's driver's license be automatically suspended for 180 days upon final conviction of intentionally destroying 911 address markers or identifiers. The license suspension would be imposed for a year if a person was previously denied a license or had a license suspended under this offense.
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
House Bill 1123 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure by defining "address identifier" as a mailbox, sign, 9-1-1 locator system, or other property designed to identify an address. The bill provides that in the trial of an offense of criminal mischief, if the judge determines that the property that is the subject of the offense was an address identifier, the judge is required to make an affirmative finding of that fact and enter the affirmative finding in the judgment in the case.
H.B. 1123 amends the Transportation Code to provide for a suspension of a person's driver's license on final conviction of an offense of criminal mischief if the judgment in the case contains an affirmative finding that the property that is the subject of the offense was an address identifier. The Department of Public Safety may not issue a driver's license to a person convicted of the aforementioned offense who, on the date of the conviction, did not hold a driver's license. The period of suspension is 180 days after the date of a final conviction, and the period of license denial is 180 days after the date the person applies for reinstatement or issuance of a driver's license, unless the person has previously been denied a license for this offense or had a license suspended, in which event the period of suspension is one year after the date of a final conviction, and the period of license denial is one year after the date the person applies for reinstatement or issuance of a driver's license.
Makes application of this Act prospective.
EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2007.