| Vote Recommendation | Economic Freedom | Property Rights | Personal Responsibility | Limited Government | Individual Liberty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Neutral | Neutral | Neutral | Positive | Positive |
Relating to credit toward a defendant's sentence for time confined in jail or prison before sentencing.
The probable fiscal impact of implementing the bill is indeterminate due to a lack of
statewide data indicating whether a defendant served a sentence in a county jail for another
case and, if so, the actual length of time served. These data are necessary to determine the
fiscal implications of the bill's time credit provisions.
HB 1761 would allow the judge of the court in which the defendant is convicted to give the defendant credit on their sentence for any time they were confined in jail or prison for another case if that confinement occurred after the commission of the offense for which the defendant is convicted and before the date of the defendant’s sentencing.
To the extent that allowing a judge the discretion to give credit on an offense for pretrial time served on another charge may help alleviate over-incarceration and save taxpayer dollars by avoiding unnecessary incarceration, this bill is in alignment with limited government and individual liberty principles. For these reasons we support HB 1761.