Honorable Jim Jackson, Chair, House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence
FROM:
John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2421 by Thompson (Relating to determinations of paternity; creating an offense.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Family Code creating the offense of falsification of specimen. Under the provisions of the bill, a person would commit a third degree felony if the person alters, destroys, conceals, fabricates, or falsifies genetic evidence in a proceeding to adjudicate parentage, including inducing another person to provide a specimen with the intent to affect the outcome of the proceeding.
A felony of the third degree is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 10 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.
Expanding the list of behaviors for which a penalty is applied for any criminal offense is expected to result in increased demands upon the correctional resources of counties and or of the State due to longer terms of probation, or, longer terms of confinement in county jails or prison. However, in the case of this bill, it is assumed that the number of offenders convicted under this statute would not result in a significant impact on the programs and workload of state corrections agencies or on the demand for resources and services of those agencies.