Texas Criminal Legislative Update: April 19, 2015 The Texas Senate and House Committees continue to hold hearings to debate and flesh out the myriad criminal justice-related bills that have been filed this Session. Here are our notes on some of the important legislative pieces as they are passed out of their respective committees. HB 48 by Representatives McClendon, Leach, Herrero and Moody would create the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission to review convictions after exoneration in order to make recommendations aimed at preventing further wrongful convictions. The same bill was filed (but was not passed into law) by Representative McClendon in the 2011 and 2013 Legislative Sessions. Timothy Cole, the bill’s namesake, was a student at Texas Tech in 1985
Read more →Texas Criminal Legislative Update: March 30, 2015 The 84th Texas Legislative Session is in full-swing in Austin, and you may want to know what new laws our legislators are considering and which old laws might get a facelift. Committee hearings in both the House and Senate are well underway: some bills have been passed out of Committee, some have had hearings and were left pending in Committee, and many more are still awaiting a hearing. Over the next few weeks, we want to keep you updated on some noteworthy pieces of legislation moving through the committees as the Legislature marches towards Sine Die on June 1, 2015. These bills have had a public hearing in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee
Read more →Texas Criminal Legislative Update: March 23, 2015 The 84th Texas Legislative Session is in full-swing in Austin, and you may want to know what new laws our legislators are considering and which old laws might get a facelift. Two controversial gun bills were passed out of the Texas Senate this week, along party lines. SB 11 by Senator Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) would allow licensed students on public university campuses to carry concealed handguns; private universities would be permitted to opt out. SB 17 by Senator Craig Estes (R-Grandbury) would allow open carry in public by licensed gun owners. This Session Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) has filed two important bills related to juveniles and the justice system. SB 106 aims to clean up previously-passed juvenile
Read more →Texas Criminal Legislative Update: March 16, 2015 The 84th Texas Legislative Session is in full-swing in Austin, and you may want to know what new laws our legislators are considering and which old laws might get a facelift. Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) has already passed an important bill out of Committee. SB 135 is designed to replace Texas’ antiquated “pick-a-pal” Grand Jury system (the last remaining in the country) with a jury pool system designed to reflect the community’s diversity. Senator Joan Huffman (R-Houston) filed SB 174, which would deny community supervision sentences for “illegal alien” offenders. University of Houston Professor Geoffrey Hoffman quickly repudiated the bill’s intent and outlined its unconstitutionality in a Houston Chronicle article titled “Houston Senator’s
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