Honorable John Whitmire, Chair, Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
FROM:
John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB153 by Huffman (Relating to the authority of a judge to suspend the imposition of a sentence and place a defendant on community supervision.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to prohibit a judge from suspending a jury-imposed sentence of confinement to place a defendant on community supervision if the jury did not recommend community supervision.
Limiting sentencing options is expected to result in increased demands upon the correctional resources of counties or of the State due to longer terms of probation, or, longer terms of confinement in county jails or prison. A check of Texas Department of Criminal Justice records, Department of Public Safety records, Office of Court Administration records, and Jail Standards Commission records did not reveal any information that would help in an accurate assumption regarding the number of times a judge suspended a sentence of confinement imposed by a jury and instead placed the defendant on community supervision. For this analysis however, it is assumed 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.