The provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions are the subject of this analysis. The bill would amend the Penal Code to enhance the punishment for manslaughter from a second to a first degree felony if the actor delivered a controlled substance to an individual in violation of the Health and Safety Code, the individual consumed the controlled substance without altering it, and the individual's death resulted from the consumption of the controlled substance.

A first-degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for life or five to 99 years and a second-degree felony for two to 20 years.   In addition to confinement all felony level offenses are subject to an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.

Enhancing the punishment for an offense is expected to increase demands on state and/or county correctional agency resources due to more people under community supervision and in state correctional institutions.  In fiscal year 2014, 99 people were arrested, 40 were placed under felony community supervision, and 104 were admitted to state correctional institutions for the offense of manslaughter.  A statewide repository containing the level of detail necessary to isolate those individuals placed under felony community supervision or sent to state correctional institutions for manslaughter under the circumstances in which the offense would be enhanced is not currently available.  This analysis assumes the provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions for criminal offenses would not result in a significant impact on state correctional populations, programs, or workloads.