New Texas Judicial Branch Website

After almost 10 years of faithful service, the judicial branch website we know today will be retired. On October 18th, 2014, OCA will launch the new Texas Judicial Branch website (http://www.txcourts.gov).

On September 2, OCA submitted its final report "Study of the Necessity of Certain Court Costs and Fees in Texas," mandated by the 83rd Legislature in SB 1908. Thanks to Ted Wood, Amanda Stites, Marilyn Galloway, Shelly Ortiz and Judy Speer who all helped at different stages of the project to put together the civil court cost list. We could not have finished on time without their help.

The report can be found on the OCA website at: 

On September 1, 2014, the Judicial Branch Certification Commission (JBCC) began operation. The JBCC will oversee the certification, registration, and licensing of court reporters and court reporting firms, guardians, process servers, and licensed court interpreters. On September 4th, the nine member JBCC participated in the new Commissioner training and orientation followed by the inaugural meeting of the Commission held on September 5th.  For further information on the JBCC you can visit the new website located at http://www.jbcc.txcourts.gov/jbcc.aspx. 

David Slayton addresses the JBCC.

JBCC Advisory Board Order 14-9177

In August and September, the Supreme Court of Texas issued final orders approving three sets of new rules or rule amendments.

On August 19, in Miscellaneous Docket No. 14-9168, the Court approved the final rules and fees of the Judicial Branch Certification Commission. In the same order and a companion order signed a week later (Misc. Docket No. 14-9176), the Court repealed certain rules that formerly governed process servers, court reporters, and guardians. The changes made by these orders took effect on September 1.

Also on August 19, in Miscellaneous Docket No. 14-9174, the Court gave final approval to amendments to Texas Rule of Evidence 902(10)-the business-records-affidavit rule. The final version of the amended rule requires parties to serve business records and an authenticating affidavit on the other parties to the case at least 14 days before trial. The amendments apply to cases filed on or after September 1.

Court Services Consultant Aurora Zamora is now available to assist jurisdictions within Texas who are interested in starting a mental health court or improving their existing programs. 

On October 23 - 24, 2014, the Texas Center for Judiciary, Inc. is sponsoring a curriculum for interested judiciary, "Mental Health and Forensic Science Issues for the Trial Judge."  OCA will host a resource table with resource information related to mental health courts.  Zamora will be available to speak to the participants about assisting them with their needs.

Conference Information

The Mental Health & Forensic Science Issues for Trial Judges seminar is a continuing judicial education program designed especially for Texas judges by the Texas Center for the Judiciary's Curriculum Committee and the Council of State Governments Justice Center. The program is funded by a grant from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. For their attendance, participants will earn 9.75 continuing judicial education credits, including 2 hours of family violence credits.

https://www.yourhonor.com/single-conference/122

According to Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 103.0033(j), OCA must periodically audit counties and municipalities to verify the information reported.  The method by which OCA expects to evaluate the information reported is referred to as a "Data Integrity Audit."  In this type of audit, the office will seek to measure how reliable the data is.  "Reliable" data does not have to be "error-free," but it must: 

• be reasonably complete and accurate;
• meet the intended purposes; and
• not be subject to inappropriate alterations. 

As currently envisioned, the audit would measure selected data elements and categorize them as follows: 

• Sufficiently Reliable
• Partially Reliable
• Not Sufficiently Reliable
• Undetermined Reliability  

To illustrate, let's assume an extreme case where a county reports amounts assessed as $500,000; however, the audit determines that the county should have reported $750,000.  The amount reported is off by 50% - obviously it is "Not Sufficiently Reliable."  If, on the other hand, the amount reported should have been $505,000, the amount reported is only off by 1%.  While this is not "error-free," it is "Sufficiently Reliable" and would pass the audit.  These determinations would be applied to some or all of the data elements that are reported to the CIP Reporting System.

The challenge in developing a data integrity audit program is determining which data elements to audit, what level of variance is tolerable to say the data is "Sufficiently" or "Partially" Reliable, and how many data elements may be graded lower than "Sufficiently Reliable" before a county or city is deemed to be out of compliance with the reporting requirements.  OCA staff are currently studying these issues in detail and will complete the following tasks before the Data Integrity Audits "go live:" 

• complete the initial identification of auditable data elements and tolerable variances
• develop an audit program based on the identified data elements and tolerable variances
• conduct one or more pilot audits in selected counties and cities
• make adjustments to the audit criteria, as needed, based on the pilot audits
• draft administrative rules, post in the Texas Register, receive feedback on rules
• publish final rules for data integrity audits
• develop risk assessment
• begin auditing counties and cities

Congress adjourned before resolving the funding to address the unaccompanied alien children crisis.  On July 31st, Senate leadership pulled its $3.6 billion emergency supplemental spending package, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (S. 2648), when they couldn't get enough votes to break a filibuster on their package. Most of the measure was designed to deal with the children illegally emigrating from Central America.  Republicans GOP senators opposed both the bill's funding levels and its lack of policy changes to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Authorization Act of 2008 that allowed for greater deliberation for unaccompanied minors coming to the United States from countries other than Mexico and Canada. 

NCSC Washington Update

The court fee intercept legislation, the Crime Victim Restitution and Court Fee Intercept Act (H.R. 5178), was introduced in the House of Representatives on July 23, 2014.  Congressman Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) are the lead sponsors.  Both Representatives Paulsen and Blumenauer are members of the Ways and Means Committee, the primary tax-drafting committee in the House.

This measure would provide federal authorization for the U.S. Department of Treasury to intercept tax refunds to pay overdue court-ordered financial obligations such as fines, fees, and victims restitution.  

We will be working to increase the number of co-sponsors to this important legislation over the August recess.  We are asking that you contact your members of Congress and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor to H.R. 5178.  We have an important task in getting as many co-sponsors on the bill as possible.  Representatives show their support for legislation by "co-sponsoring" a bill.  When an elected member of Congress co-sponsors a bill, their name is added to the bill as a public declaration of support.

Steps to secure co-sponsors:

1. Contact your Representative by letter and fax and/or by telephone;
2. Ask your Representative to cosponsor H.R. 5178; and
3. Explain how this bill will help state courts and victims.

On September 18, 2104, the Senate approved the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (H.R. 4980) by unanimous consent.  This action followed House approval on July 23rd.  The President is expected to sign the legislation.  

The measure, introduced by House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), was designed to prevent sex trafficking of youth in foster care, encourage the adoption of more children from the foster care system, and increase child support collections.  In a bipartisan and bicameral effort, agreement was reached between the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to advance this legislation.  H.R. 4980 is a combination of several bills that had been passed in the House and the Senate. 

H.R. 4980 will: 

• Reauthorize the Adoption Incentive Fund through FY 2016 and amend the adoption incentives, including adding new awards for states that increase the adoptions of older children and for increases in guardianship/kinship placements; 

• Extend the Family Connections Grants through 2014 to continue funding for programs such as  kinship navigator programs, family-finding programs, family-group decision making, and family-based drug treatment; 

• Add state plan requirements regarding screening and services to victims of sex trafficking, and locating and responding to children who have run away from foster care including plans to address, report and track children who run from care; 

• Require states to develop a "reasonable and prudent parent standard" for the child's participation in age or developmentally appropriate extracurricular, enrichment, cultural, and social activities and require states to ensure foster parents and individuals in a care facility have the training and ability to exercise their judgment that will allow children to participate in these type of activities; 

• Require collection of sex-trafficking data in the adoption and foster care analysis and reporting system (AFCARS); 

• Limit the use of a planned permanent living arrangement (APPLA) as a case plan to children age 16 or older and require new documentation and determination requirements for an APPLA status; 

• Give children age 14 and older authority to participate in the development of their own case plans; 

• Require notification of adoptive parents when a sibling of the adopted child is removed from parental custody; 

• Require that foster children leaving foster care (unless in foster care less than six months) not be discharged without being provided with a copy of their birth certificates, Social Security cards, health insurance information, copies of medical records, and driver's licenses or equivalent state-issued identification cards; 

• Require states to adopt the 2008 amendments to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act to enable the United States to ratify the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention;

• Clarify that states should use existing funding sources to support the establishment of parenting time arrangements, including child support incentives, Access and Visitation Grants, and Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants; 

• Require state child support agencies to implement a national data exchange model to improve interoperability; and