Honorable Aaron Pena, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB187 by Hochberg (Relating to prohibiting jury-recommended or deferred adjudication community supervision for a defendant convicted of murder.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure making offenders convicted of murder (Section 19.02, Penal Code) ineligible for judge-ordered or jury-recommended community supervision. The bill would take effect September 1, 2007 and apply only to an offense committed on or after the effective date.
For fiscal year 2006, 34 community supervision placements were convicted of the offense of murder. For this analysis, it is assumed that these defendants would be shifted from community supervision to prison as a result of the bill. In order to estimate the future impact of the bill, the changes proposed for admission and release policy are applied in a simulation model, to estimate the decrease in the number of people on community supervision from the bill and the shift in defendants convicted of the offense of murder from community supervision placement to prison.
Assuming that sentencing patterns and release policies not addressed in this bill remain constant, the probable impact of implementing the provisions of the bill during each of the first five years following passage, in terms of daily demand upon the adult corrections agencies, is estimated as follows: