By:  Gallego                                           H.B. No. 376
       73R716 DRH-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the authority of a prosecuting attorney to  call a
    1-3  grand jury back into session.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Article 20.08, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        Art. 20.08.  ADJOURNMENTS.  The grand jury shall meet and
    1-8  adjourn at times agreed upon by a majority of the body; but they
    1-9  shall not adjourn, at any one time, for more than three days,
   1-10  unless by consent of the court.   With the consent of the court,
   1-11  they may adjourn for a longer time, and shall as near as may be,
   1-12  conform their adjournments to those of the court.  If the grand
   1-13  jury has adjourned for more than three days, a prosecuting attorney
   1-14  with jurisdiction before the court may call the grand jury back
   1-15  into session.
   1-16        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-17  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-18  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-19  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-20  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-21  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-22  passage, and it is so enacted.