BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 1005

By: Davis, Yvonne

Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Under current law, the state and the defendant in certain court proceedings each have a right to poll the jury, which is done by calling the name of each juror and then questioning the juror for purposes of establishing the jury's verdict. However, interested parties express concern that calling out a juror's name in court would not be in the juror's best interest because this identification could pose a safety risk to the juror, particularly in controversial cases. To offset this risk, the interested parties have suggested assigning an identification number to each juror, which would maintain the anonymity of each member of the jury. H.B. 1005 seeks to provide for such anonymity to individual jurors in certain court proceedings.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

H.B. 1005 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to authorize a judge, for the purposes of polling members of a jury to ascertain where each juror stands in relation to the verdict, to assign each juror an identification number to use in place of the juror's name.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2015.