80th Leigslature: Jessica’s Law Passes House

HB 8, “Jessica’s Law” passed the House on Second reading today 118-23.

Though controversial because it expands to the death penalty and puts Texas out on a limb given the dubious nature of the constitutionality of the death penalty for sex offenders, it passed by a fairly wide margin, and with only Democrats in dissent:

Yeas – Alonzo; Anchia; Anderson; Aycock; Bailey; Berman; Bohac; Bonnen; Branch; Brown, B.; Brown, F.; Callegari; Chavez; Chisum; Christian; Cook, B.; Cook, R.; Corte; Crabb; Creighton; Crownover; Darby; Davis, J.; Delisi; Deshotel; Driver; Dukes; Eissler; Elkins; England; Escobar; Farabee; Farias; Flynn; Frost; Garcia; Gattis; Gonzales; Gonzalez Toureilles; Goolsby; Guillen; Haggerty; Hamilton; Hancock; Hardcastle; Harless; Harper-Brown; Heflin; Herrero; Hilderbran; Hill; Homer; Hopson; Howard, C.; Hughes; Isett; Jackson; Jones; Keffer; King, P.; King, S.; King, T.; Kolkhorst; Krusee; Kuempel; Latham; Leibowitz; Lucio; Macias; Madden; Mallory Caraway; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McCall; McReynolds; Menendez; Merritt; Miller; Morrison; Mowery; Murphy; Noriega; O’Day; Oliveira; Orr; Ortiz; Otto; Parker; Patrick; Paxton; Peña; Phillips; Pierson; Pitts; Quintanilla; Raymond; Riddle; Ritter; Rose; Smith, T.; Smith, W.; Smithee; Solomons; Strama; Straus; Swinford; Talton; Taylor; Truitt; Van Arsdale; Vaught; Veasey; Villarreal; Vo; West; Woolley; Zedler; Zerwas

Nays – Allen; Bolton; Burnam; Castro; Cohen; Coleman; Davis, Y.; Dutton; Farrar; Giddings; Hernandez; Hodge; Howard, D.; McClendon; Miles; Moreno; Naishtat; Olivo; Pickett; Puente; Rodriguez; Thompson; Turner

Two members who were in opposition to the legislation have released statements. Both cited the death penalty as reasons for their “no” votes.
First, Ellen Cohen (D-Houston):

“I would like to thank Rep. Riddle and my colleagues for their work on the issue of sexual assault. For the last 17 years, I have served as President and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center, which is dedicated to ending sexual and domestic violence. On behalf of those of us in the field of working against sexual violence, we appreciate the attention this debate has drawn.

If, in our efforts to protect Texas children, we also created the unintended consequence of making testimony harder for victim survivors, we did not fulfill out duty. While many aspects of this bill will help prosecutors keep dangerous perpetrators off our streets, adding capital punishment will traumatize children who will be testifying against family members.

Asking young victims to weigh the consequence of what their testimony would do to a family member or close friend will not keep a single Texas child safe. It will have the possibility of making an already traumatizing situation worse.

We should be making the conviction of predators easier for prosecutors, not adding obstacles. Unfortunately, this one provision has made me stand against HB 8.”

And, Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin):

“I strongly support severe punishment for a hideous offense such as sexual assault of a child, however, the death penalty should be set aside for murderers, I don’t believe the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the death penalty for crimes that do not involve a murder.

“Sadly, this important issue has been politicized. It is gubernatorial electoral politics in action, Even our notoriously tough Texas prosecutors, did not request the death penalty for HB 8.

“There are measures in HB 8 that I support, but before I vote to expand the offenses eligible for the death penalty, we must first fix its existing fatal flaws.”

For the record, Capitol Annex thinks HB 8 was heavily flawed, in part because of the death penalty provisions.

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