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BILL ANALYSIS |
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By: Naishtat |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Current law specific to Austin requires the Municipal Court to use court reporters to record trials and does not allow the court to use the general law which permits trials to be recorded by an electronic recording device. Due to the limited number of court reporters available, cases scheduled for trial are often reset two to three times. This negatively impacts police officers, victims, and litigants.
It also requires greater expenses because of the cost of hiring court reporter contractors. This bill would give the Austin Municipal Court the option to use recording equipment instead of court reporters at trials. Court reporters would still be used to transcribe the recordings and the recordings would still be kept until all appeals deadlines have passed.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the author's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency or institution.
ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 4742 repeals Section 30.00737(d), Government Code, to provide that Section 30.00010(d), Government Code, applies to the Austin Municipal Court. The bill makes a finding that all procedural requirements for the bill have been satisfied.
EFFECTIVE DATE
Upon passage, or, if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2009.
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE
C.S.H.B. 4742 is a Texas Legislative Council draft version of the non-Council bill that was filed. There is so substantive change.