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Below is the HillCo client report from the October 23 Senate Jurisprudence Committee hearing.

The committee met to consider the following interim charges:
 
Study and make recommendations on the feasibility of removing failure to attend school (Section 25.094, Texas Education Code) as a Class C misdemeanor offense and determine the feasibility of adjudicating juvenile truancy as a civil offense.
 
Study and make recommendations on the availability and application of deferred adjudication, orders for non-disclosure, and expunctions. Study extending the use of expunction of criminal records history and non-disclosures to certain qualified individuals with low-level, non-violent convictions.
 
 
Failure to Attend School
 
David Slayton, Office of Court Administration

  • There are actually two offenses
    • Failure to attend school – handled in JP and municipal courts
    • Truancy – handled in juvenile courts as civil offenses
  • Because of the focus on this issue recently, failure to attend school charges have been dropping
  • Treating all cases as truancy would put a significant burden on juvenile courts

 
Joy Baskin, Texas Association of School Boards

  • Do not have a specific plan yet for how to address this issue
  • May need to put more emphasis on looking at each case individually to give the opportunity to offer other preventative measures; do not know what is causing each child to not attend school but finding that out would be helpful
    • There need to be trained available attendance officers who can go to homes and ask questions of the family to help a student get back on track; some school districts already have attendance officers and perhaps they do not need to be school employees
  • If children reach the court system, the courts need to have the ability to address the needs of the children and not just provide a punishment
  • A criminal sanction does need to exist, just as a last effort
  • Chairman Royce West asked why there needs to be a criminal sanction
    • The system still needs to have teeth; if a student has the ability to go to school and is making the conscious choice not to they should have a punishment
  • Sen. Sylvia Garcia asked how many schools have attendance officers
    • Not sure
  • Sen. Jose Rodriguez asked what best practices have been identified, if any
    • Hearing from members that creating an environment where both the education and court systems can collaborate and exchange information to intervene on behalf of students would be the best
  • Sen. Ken Paxton asked if there are states that do not criminalize truancy
    • Engaged in studying different systems right now
    • Slayton noted he thinks the only other state that criminalizes this is Wyoming

 
Judge Rey Chavez, Dallas County Truancy Court

  • Within the truancy court there are programs for anger management, family counseling and drug abuse prevention; the truancy court system is working very well
  • West noted that he does not like a system where a school child has to come before a judge and plead guilty or not guilty; that will change this session
  • Juvenile case managers are used to help the child open up and talk about their issues at home and why the problem is happening
  • Some other system could work just as well to address issues before the child reaches the court but the court does need to have some involvement
  • Whatever system is developed needs to continue with case managers, keep the ability to work with students at some level within the court system; court ordered attendance monitoring does improve attendance and needs to be an aspect of any system that is developed
  • Fines are important because they keep parents involved; a fine can be assessed and then reduced or removed if attendance improves
  • Would like to see an automatic expunction provision if a student graduates or gets a GED; will need to find a way to make it work because the courts cannot fill out paperwork on behalf of a child
  • The system also needs to act faster so that a child doesn’t come in with over 100 absences before they are placed in a program
  • West noted that part of the discussion needs to be whether or not students and parents are funding this system; they should be because they are the users
    • When looking at other states it is important to look at states that have large urban areas
  • West noted that designating truancy courts as civil courts would allow the cases to be handled in a civil proceeding and would prevent students from having to plead guilty or not guilty
  • Sen. Kelly Hancock noted the system in Texas was changed in the 90s; could look at data from back then to determine why changes were made and how they affected the system

 
Ryan Turner, Texas Municipal Courts Education Center

  • Policy makers should look at legislative history when discussing this charge; what was the impetus in 1995 to make failure to attend school a criminal offense; what has changed in the last 20 years
  • It will be important when trying to solve this issue that the legislature does not inadvertently impact other juvenile charges such as petty theft, etc.

 
David Cobos, Justice of the Peace, Midland County

  • Have advocated for the school to be the first to step for intervention and prevention
  • The court should be the last resource used; schools will need more resources for this new system to work well
  • West asked for three things that need to be considered for this issue
    • Resources and access to resources, the ability to hold people accountable, 18 year olds should be able to be filed on

 
James Henry, Juvenile Case Manager, Midland County

  • Managing attendance is the best way to keep children on the right track; when they are skipping class they are getting into other activities that help them graduate up the criminal justice system
  • Have never heard of a child coming back and having negative consequences after successfully correcting an attendance or truancy issue

 
Chris Coy, High School Administrator

  • Schools are funded based on attendance so whatever is done needs to be done with that in mind
  • The current system provides motivation for students and parents to focus on attendance; removing the possibility of an offense may take away that incentive

 
Scott McKenzie, Middle School Principal

  • There should be a requirement for proactive interventions to be taken before going to court as a last resort
  • Would like to make sure that any final consequence put in place has teeth

 
Judge John Bull, San Antonio Municipal Court

  • The process being pursued in Bexar County is the exact opposite of the Dallas County process that was described earlier
  • The Bexar County process works more with the school and focuses on prevention and intervention

 
Mary Mergler, Texas Appleseed

  • Texas’ approach to truancy is not working
  • Texas has adopted a purely punitive approach that relies almost wholly on court-based intervention

 
Derek Cohen, Texas Public Policy Foundation

  • Failure to attend school should be completely decriminalized

 
 
Deferred Adjudication, Orders of Non-Disclosure, Expunction
 
David Slayton, Office of Court Administration

  • Discussed the differences between deferred adjudications, non-disclosure and expunctions

 
Angie Kendall, Texas Department of Public Safety

  • Process about 3,500 non-disclosures a year, 14,000 expunctions
  • The process runs very efficiently

 
Shannon Edmunds, Texas District & County Attorney’s Association

  • No testimony to deliver aside from what was discussed at the previous hearing

 
Patricia Cummings, Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association

  • There is nothing in the statute that says a judge’s decision on an order of non-disclosure is not appealable; this is a problem

 
Elizabeth Henneke, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition

  • Would like to see DPS be the only agency with the right to make bulk sales to third party providers of criminal records
  • Would like the same restrictions and obligations on third party purchasers to be passed on to downstream purchasers of criminal records

 
Derek Cohen, Texas Public Policy Foundation

  • Would like to see automatic record sealing when a juvenile becomes an adult, with prosecutor consent
  • Sentencing courts should be authorized to issue orders of non-disclosure in the same manner as a civil court

 
Public Testimony
 
Katherine Summers, City of Houston Municipal Courts Department

  • Have the largest juvenile case management system in the state of Texas
  • Provide services to determine a youth’s level of risk and to intervene at the right time
  • Juvenile case management is a key component

 
Paul Quinzi, Attorney

  • Focuses on expunction and non-disclosure work
  • What should be expunged is the offense not the arrest
  • An offense should not follow someone if they have not been found guilty in a court of law

 
Representative of Mothers Against Drunk Driving

  • When people have their records expunged they are erasing actual crimes that happened that the public should be aware of