The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure by reducing the term of “regular” community supervision for most felony offenses from a maximum of ten years to a maximum of five years.  The bill would further provide that if the jury recommended community supervision for a 3g felony offense, then the maximum term of community supervision that the court could impose remained at ten years.  The bill would also reduce the term of deferred adjudication community supervision for most felony offenses from a maximum of ten years to a maximum of five years.  The bill would provide that the maximum term of deferred adjudication community supervision that the court could impose for a defendant charged with a 3g offense remained at ten years.  The bill would eliminate the minimum term (of two years) that the court must impose on a defendant granted community supervision for a state jail felony offense. 

The bill would allow a judge for good cause shown stated on the record to impose a maximum of five one-year extensions for a defendant placed on community supervision for a state jail felony offense and provide that the judge could not impose more than one extension per revocation hearing.  The bill would allow a judge for good cause shown stated on the record to impose a maximum of five one-year extensions for a defendant placed on community supervision for a 3g offense and providing that the judge could not impose more than one extension per revocation hearing.

The bill would also eliminate the provision in the law that the minimum period of community supervision for a defendant charged with indecency with a child, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault or a sex offense in which the victim was a child and granted deferred adjudication may not be less than five years.

Data is unavailable for determining the impact of the provision of the bill relating to eliminating the minimum term (of two years) that the court must impose on a defendant granted community supervision for a state jail felony, or for the provision related to minimum periods of community supervision for defendants charged with sex offenses.  However, a simulation model was used to determine the impact of reducing the maximum community supervision term of ten years to five years.  The simulation model indicates that the impact of this particular provision of the bill would not be significant in the first five years following passage; however, the additional changed in maximum term for most felony offenses would likely result in a decrease in the felony community supervision population of  8,300 by fiscal year 2017.