2025 bills / H.B. 461
H.B. 461 Animal Crime Victim Amendments (2025)
- Introduced
- House committee
- House vote
- Senate committee
- Senate vote (stopped here)
- Signed into law
What this bill does
AI summary from the official description
This bill creates a process that lets a court, while a criminal case is still pending, decide whether an animal held in a shelter because it was abused or involved in a crime can be released or transferred to other care. It also lets peace officers with a warrant enter premises or vehicles to take custody of such animals, requires notice to the owner, and allows courts to order owners to pay shelter costs and certain offenders to complete education or cruelty-prevention programs.
About this summary
Quotes come from the official recordings' automatic captions, and plain-English summaries are written by AI from the official record. A person reviews them, but always check the recording before quoting anyone; every quote links to its moment in the video.
Check the official text below.
Official description
- provides a process to permit, while legal resolution of a crime is ongoing, the release or transfer of an animal being held in a shelter because the animal was abused or was involved in a crime
- permits a peace officer in possession of a warrant to enter premises or a vehicle to aid or take custody of an animal that is being criminally mistreated or is associated with a crime
- requires notice to the owner or possessor of the animal
- permits a shelter or government counsel to file a motion to have a court review whether an animal being held in a shelter due to criminal activity should be forfeited or transferred to alternative care
- provides procedures for the hearing and the court's determination, and permits the animal's owner to be heard as part of the hearing
- provides procedures for placement of the animal if the court orders ownership of the animal to be forfeited
- permits a court to order an animal owner to pay for the costs of sheltering an animal due to the owner's criminal activity
- permits a court to order an individual who has abused an animal or involved an animal in criminal activity to complete an educational or animal cruelty prevention program
- provides cross references for the forfeiture procedure
- makes technical changes
Your legislators on this bill
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Take action
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What members get
- An alert the day H.B. 461 is put on a committee agenda, with time and room, so you can be there to speak
- When H.B. 461 is rewritten, exactly which words changed
- Its hearings in your own calendar
- Your own scorecard: pick the side you favor and see how every legislator voted
Every vote
- 6 yes, 0 no, 5 absentHouse Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee: vote to change the bill · Feb 18, 2025Who voted how
- 5 yes, 1 no, 5 absentHouse Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee: vote, which it did not pass · Feb 18, 2025Who voted how
- 9 yes, 0 no, 2 absentHouse Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee: vote to change the bill · Feb 24, 2025Who voted how
- 10 yes, 0 no, 1 absentHouse Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee: vote to approve it · Feb 24, 2025Who voted how
- 44 yes, 20 no, 11 absentFinal House vote · Feb 27, 2025Who voted how
- 3 yes, 2 no, 2 absentSenate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee: vote to approve it · Mar 4, 2025Who voted how