BILL ANALYSIS

 

 

Senate Research Center	S.B. 1709
88R8985 MZM-F	By: King
	Border Security
	3/21/2023
	As Filed

 

 

 

AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT

 

Organized crime in Texas has evolved and continues to evolve, making it more difficult to detect and increasingly violent. International cartels are recruiting younger and younger members and flooding our streets and schools with dangerous drugs. They have weaponized narcotics, targeting children with fentanyl-laced drugs manufactured to look like candy and ordinary over-the-counter medicine. These groups do not limit their activities to trafficking narcotics. They are also involved in human trafficking, fraud, money laundering, and fostering political unrest through violence and threats of violence.

 

Because of their structure, it is often difficult to prosecute the upper levels of criminal organizations and their support structures. This often means that law enforcement are only able to arrest and charge the lowest levels of the organizations, which has little impact on their operations.

 

S.B. 1709 adds transnational criminal organizations to the organized criminal activity scheme and gives law enforcement the tools they need to criminally charge and convict all actors across the various parts of organizations that engage in international criminal activities; including organizational heads, recruiters, logistics, counterfeiting, and digital support.

 

S.B. 1709 also addresses the dangers posed by criminal organizations by adding a punishment enhancement for using or exhibiting a deadly weapon during organized criminal activity.

 

As proposed, S.B. 1709 amends current law relating to the prosecution of the offenses of sedition and engaging in organized criminal activity, and increases criminal penalties.

 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

 

This bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, institution, or agency.

 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

 

SECTION 1. Amends Section 557.001, Government Code, by amending Subsection (a) and adding Subsection (b-1), as follows:

 

(a) Provides that a person commits an offense if the person knowingly:

 

(1) commits, attempts to commit, or conspires with one or more persons to commit an act intended to overthrow, destabilize, destroy, or alter the constitutional form of government of this state or of any political subdivision of this state by force, violence, or a threat of force or violence. Makes a nonsubstantive change;

 

(2) makes no changes to this subdivision; or

 

(3) participates, with knowledge of the nature of the organization, in the management of an organization that engages in or attempts to engage in an act intended to overthrow, destabilize, destroy, or alter the constitutional form of government of this state or of any political subdivision of this state by force or violence.

 

(b-1) Provides that a conspiracy to commit an offense under Section 557.001 (Sedition), notwithstanding Section 15.02(d) (relating to providing that a criminal conspiracy offense is one category lower than the most serious felony that is the object of the conspiracy, and if the most serious felony that is the object of the conspiracy is a state jail felony, the offense is a Class A misdemeanor), Penal Code, is punishable in the same manner as an offense under this section.

 

SECTION 2. Amends Section 71.02, Penal Code, as follows:

 

Sec. 71.02. ENGAGING IN ORGANIZED CRIMINAL ACTIVITY. (a) Provides that a person commits an offense if, with certain intent or as a member of a criminal street gang or transnational criminal organization, the person commits or conspires to commit one or more of certain offenses, including unlawful possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance or dangerous drug, or unlawful possession of a controlled substance or dangerous drug through forgery, fraud, misrepresentation, or deception.

 

(b) Creates an exception under Subsection (e).

 

(c) Provides that a conspiracy to commit an offense under this section, notwithstanding Section 15.02(d), is punishable in the same manner as an offense under this section. Deletes existing text providing that conspiring to commit an offense under this section is of the same degree as the most serious offense listed in Subsection (a) that the person conspired to commit.

 

(d) Deletes existing text providing that the offense, if the defendant proves the issue in the affirmative by a preponderance of the evidence, is the same category of offense as the most serious offense listed in Subsection (a) that is committed, unless the defendant is convicted of conspiring to commit the offense, in which event the offense is one category lower than the most serious offense that the defendant conspired to commit.

 

(e) Provides that an offense that is punishable as a second degree felony or as any lower category of offense under Subsection (b) is one additional category higher than the category listed under Subsection (b) if the person used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of one or more of the offenses listed under Subsection (a) and that if an offense is punishable as a Class A misdemeanor under Subsection (b), the offense is a state jail felony.

 

(f) Defines "transnational criminal organization."

 

SECTION 3. Makes application of this Act prospective.

 

SECTION 4. Effective date: September 1, 2023.

�