2023 Legislation: Judicial Accountability

HB 841 (Authors: Ordaz; Leach; Moody | Sponsor: Middleton), Relating to certain judicial statistics and related information gathered by the Texas Judicial Council. HB 841 requires the Texas Judicial Council to gather case-level information on the amount and character of business transacted by courts. Effective on 9/1/23 


HB 1182 (Author: Harless | Sponsor: Whitmire), Relating to judicial statistics and other pertinent information gathered by the Texas Judicial Council and certain populous counties. HB 1182 requires the Texas Judicial Council to collect monthly court activity statistics and case-level information for each trial court in Texas. Trial courts in counties with at least one million residents must report more information, including: the number of cases assigned to the court; the court’s case clearance rate; number of cases disposed; number of jury panels; number of orders of continuance for an attorney before the court; number of pleas accepted by the court; number of cases tried by the judge of the court; number of cases tried before a visiting or associate judge of the court; and other court activity data. The Office of Court Administration must publish the collected data online in a searchable format; similarly, counties with a population greater than one million must publish the data on their county website for each of their trial courts. Effective on 9/1/23 


During the 2023 session of the Texas Legislature, the Texas Center for Justice and Equity tracked around 40 youth and adult justice bills that made it to the Governor's desk. You can find links to all of our analyses in our 2023 Bill Analysis Guide.