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Committee approves cleanup to felony‑sentencing modernization requiring jury instructions on minimum time served
Summary
House Bill 2105, described as a cleanup to last year’s felony‑sentencing modernization, was reported out of committee after an amendment to require (change “may” to “shall”) jury instructions that include minimum time‑served information and percentages.
The House Rules Committee reported House Bill 2105, a cleanup measure for last year’s felony‑sentencing modernization, after the sponsor explained an amendment that changes jury‑instruction language from “may” to “shall.”
Chairman Osborne, sponsor of the amendment and bill presentation, said the change “simply changes the word may to shall, And, which means that we are requiring judges to include in jury instructions the minimum time served information for each charge rather, or for each charge rather than, May. And so that's what we're doing with that.” The committee heard no substantive debate on the amendment and the sponsor described the bill as chiefly administrative fixes identified during implementation planning.
The sponsor said the cleanup bill addresses items discovered while preparing to implement House Bill 1792, the felony‑sentencing modernization law passed last year; the sponsor said stakeholders including corrections officials, district attorneys and law‑enforcement representatives cooperated on the adjustments. The sponsor described the longer previous bill as the “big bill” and characterized this measure as the shorter, corrective follow‑up.
Committee members moved the bill as due passed. The chair declared the committee vote 10 aye, 0 nay and reported the bill out as passed. No fiscal impacts or additional amendments were recorded on the committee floor during the explanation or vote.
