Honorable Joe Moody, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1581 by Thimesch (Relating to the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance causing death or serious bodily injury; creating a criminal offense.), As Introduced
The bill would create the criminal offense of manufacturing or delivering a controlled substance in violation of the Texas Controlled Substances Act causing death or serious bodily injury and establish the penalty as a second degree felony for causing serious bodily injury and a first degree felony for causing death. The bill would prohibit the court from ordering the sentence for such an offense to run concurrently with any other sentence the court imposes on the defendant.
Creating a new criminal offense may result in increased demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.
In fiscal year 2022, there were 10,485 individuals arrested, 2,019 individuals placed on adult community supervision, 135 individuals placed on juvenile community supervision, 2,880 individuals admitted into adult state correctional institutions, and 1 individual admitted into juvenile state correctional institutions for an offense of manufacturing or delivering a controlled substance in violation of the Texas Controlled Substances Act. It is unknown how many cases caused death or serious bodily injury.
The impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources cannot be determined due to the lack of data to identify the number of cases where the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance caused death or serious bodily injury.