By: Burkett, Button (Senate Sponsor - Menéndez) H.B. No. 3019
(In the Senate - Received from the House May 8, 2017;
May 9, 2017, read first time and referred to Committee on Criminal
Justice; May 19, 2017, reported favorably by the following vote:
Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 19, 2017, sent to printer.)
Click here to see the committee vote
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the prosecution for the offense of injury to a child,
elderly individual, or disabled individual.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Sections 22.04(a-1) and (i), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(a-1) A person commits an offense if the person is an owner,
operator, or employee of a group home, nursing facility, assisted
living facility, boarding home facility, intermediate care
facility for persons with an intellectual or developmental
disability [mental retardation], or other institutional care
facility and the person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or
with criminal negligence by omission causes to a child, elderly
individual, or disabled individual who is a resident of that group
home or facility:
(1) serious bodily injury;
(2) serious mental deficiency, impairment, or injury;
or
(3) bodily injury.
(i) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under
Subsection (b)(2) that before the offense the actor:
(1) notified in person the child, elderly individual,
or disabled individual that the actor [he] would no longer provide
any of the care described by Subsection (d),[;] and
[(2)] notified in writing the parents or a person,
other than the actor, [himself] acting in loco parentis to the
child, elderly individual, or disabled individual that the actor
[he] would no longer provide any of the care described by Subsection
(d); or
(2) [(3)] notified in writing the Department of Family
and Protective [and Regulatory] Services that the actor [he] would
no longer provide any of the care described by [set forth in]
Subsection (d).
SECTION 2. Section 22.04(c)(3), Penal Code, is amended to
read as follows:
(3) "Disabled individual" means a person:
(A) with one or more of the following:
(i) autism spectrum disorder, as defined by
Section 1355.001, Insurance Code;
(ii) developmental disability, as defined
by Section 112.042, Human Resources Code;
(iii) intellectual disability, as defined
by Section 591.003, Health and Safety Code;
(iv) severe emotional disturbance, as
defined by Section 261.001, Family Code; [or]
(v) traumatic brain injury, as defined by
Section 92.001, Health and Safety Code; or
(vi) mental illness, as defined by Section
571.003, Health and Safety Code; or
(B) who otherwise by reason of age or physical or
mental disease, defect, or injury is substantially unable to
protect the person's self from harm or to provide food, shelter, or
medical care for the person's self.
SECTION 3. The change in law made by this Act applies only
to an offense committed on or after the effective date of this Act.
An offense committed before the effective date of this Act is
governed by the law in effect on the date the offense was committed,
and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose. For
purposes of this section, an offense was committed before the
effective date of this Act if any element of the offense occurred
before that date.
SECTION 4. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.
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