HBA-AMW H.B. 2048 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 2048 By: Burnam Criminal Jurisprudence 4/1/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Since January 1991, the state of Texas has executed seven persons who were under the age of 18 at the time they committed a capital offense. Of all of the inmates across the nation currently on death row serving sentences for a juvenile crime, approximately one-third of these inmates are in Texas. Many states have established a minimum age of 18 for the death penalty. Although the majority of Texas laws designate 18 as the age of adulthood, the minimum age for a person to be sentenced to death in Texas is 17. Concerns have been raised regarding the maturity of juveniles and their ability to foresee and comprehend the consequences of their actions. House Bill 2048 prohibits the application of the death penalty to a person under the age of 18 when the capital offense was committed and decreases from 40 years to 25 years the length of time before an inmate may be eligible for consideration of parole if the inmate is serving a life sentence for a capital offense committed when the inmate was under the age of 18. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. ANALYSIS House Bill 2048 amends the Penal Code to prohibit a person, in any case, from being punished by death for an offense committed while the person was younger than 18, rather than 17, years. The bill amends the Government Code to provide that an inmate serving a life sentence for a capital felony committed when the inmate was younger than 18 years of age is not eligible for release on parole until the actual calendar time the inmate has served, without consideration of good conduct time, equals 25 calendar years. EFFECTIVE DATE On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2001.