Senate committee sends constitutional amendment to deny bail for certain repeat violent offenders to floor

The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted 7–0 to send Senate Joint Resolution 87 to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. The measure, as explained by Senator Huffman, would amend the Texas Constitution to require courts to deny bond to a person who has been convicted of or is currently on bond for certain listed serious felonies when there is probable cause to believe the person committed another of those same offenses.

Why it matters: The amendment would remove judicial discretion in a narrow set of repeat-offender circumstances and change how pretrial liberty is handled for the most serious charges, a shift advocates say raises due-process concerns.

Senator Huffman, who explained the measure to the committee, said the amendment targets a “very unique” subset of cases involving the “most serious of the most serious offenses.” He listed offenses covered by the proposal as murder and capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, indecency with a child, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated robbery, and trafficking or continuous trafficking of a person. Huffman told the committee that the provision would apply when a person has been previously convicted of, or is currently on bond for, one of those offenses and there is probable cause to believe they committed another listed offense; in that circumstance, “the judge shall deny bond,” he said.

Huffman told the committee he reviewed statewide data from the public safety report and said it showed substantial numbers: “There were 30,764 people processed just for those offenses” statewide in 2024, and he cited counts of people on bond for specified offenses (he said about 1,000 for murder; 1,500 for indecency with a child; 16,000 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and 3,857 for aggravated robbery).

Civil-rights organizations opposed the measure at public testimony. Nick Hudson of the ACLU of Texas said the amendment “requires detention without due process for certain serious allegations,” and stressed that the presumption of innocence and individualized hearings have long been central to pretrial liberty. Kirsten Budwein, a policy attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the proposal “doubles down on stripping the discretion away from judges” and urged maintaining individualized assessments rather than a mandatory-denial rule.

Senator Miles asked whether the proposal would be presented to voters; Huffman confirmed that Section 2 of the joint resolution would refer the proposed constitutional amendment to the ballot for approval by Texas voters. Huffman also told the committee he plans a floor amendment to clarify ballot language.

The committee chair moved the measure be reported favorably and the roll call produced seven ayes, zero nays. The resolution will proceed to the full Senate for further consideration.