February 13, 2001

SB 240 (Wentworth) Fact Sheet:

Against charging hindering arrest when there’s no offense

Presented by the ACLU of Texas and the Sunshine Project for Police Accountability

The ACLU of Texas and the Sunshine Project oppose SB 240 because police may charge “hindering arrest” to cover police misconduct in the field when someone has done nothing else wrong. If officers don’t have to be arresting someone for an actual violation of law in order to invoke this mostly discretionary charge, then the policy opens the door for abuse.

Current status of Texas law:

Presently in order to charge someone with hindering arrest, an officer actually has to be arresting someone for “an offense.”

SB 240 makes the following changes:

This bill amends Section 38.05(a) of the Texas penal code so that officers may charge “hindering arrest” when no one has violated the law and it’s the officer who’s overstepping their bounds.

The proposed policy invites abuse

This criminal charge is a special case compared to theft or assault because only the officer’s word, without any corroboration, is required to convict. If a police officer, on only their word, wants to arrest someone for “hindering arrest,” it’s a reasonable requirement in the current law that the officer must actually be arresting someone for a violation of the law. If there has been no violation of the law, then the officer by definition is overstepping his or her legal bounds by conducting a false arrest. The “hindering” charge becomes not a weapon against criminals but a retaliatory tactic.

The ACLU of Texas and the Sunshine Project urge you to

oppose SB 240 in order to keep Texas’ police officers accountable.