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Senate committee advances SJR5 amid split testimony on preventive detention and jail impacts
Summary
The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted to report Senate Joint Resolution 5 to the full Senate after witnesses debated whether expanding preventive detention would improve public safety or lead to overdetention, higher county costs and increased custody deaths.
The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted to report Senate Joint Resolution 5 to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation after about three hours of testimony that split between public-safety advocates supporting the measure and civil-rights and jail-monitoring groups opposing it.
Nikki Presley, representing the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime, urged support, saying the state’s pretrial system currently allows “high risk defendants who can afford bail [to] buy their freedom despite the public safety threat they pose,” and argued that judges should have discretion to detain dangerous defendants prior to trial.
Opponents — including staff from the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Texas Jail Project and an exoneree — warned the resolution, as drafted, omits procedural safeguards and could expand pretrial detention for many people who are presumptively innocent. Nick Hudson, speaking for the ACLU of Texas, argued that “liberty is the norm” and said the proposal lacks protections and contains drafting errors that could lead to overbroad detention.
Anthony Graves, an exoneree who spent more than a decade on death row before his conviction was overturned, described his experience of being jailed for years without bond and said SJR5’s expansion of preventive detention could “lead to unjust outcomes for individuals who are innocent.” Graves said judges previously set bond amounts that were later increased administratively, and he warned the resolution could coerce guilty pleas.
Alicia Castillo of the Texas Civil Rights Project and Amal Sharif of the Texas Jail Project both warned expanded preventive detention would increase local jail populations and costs and could worsen custody conditions. Castillo cited recent county jail custody-death figures and urged investment in prevention and community programs rather than constitutionalizing broader detention authority.
Goldie Vanzant, an advocate with the Tested Jail Project who works with veterans, described the toll of pretrial detention on people with mental-health needs and said county jails are “engines of violence, disease, and death.” She and other witnesses cited jail death counts reported in 2023 and 2024 and the strain of shipping detainees out of county jails when local systems lack staffing.
The committee recorded a roll-call vote after testimony. Senator Huffman moved to report SJR5; the clerk recorded six ayes and no nays. The committee reported Senate Joint Resolution 5 to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.
Why it matters: Witnesses said the resolution could detain thousands of people pretrial, expand county costs and disproportionately affect Black and Brown Texans. Supporters said additional detention authority would let judges keep dangerous defendants off the streets while awaiting trial.
What’s next: The committee’s favorable report moves SJR5 to the full Senate for further consideration; members did not adopt amendments on the record during the hearing.
