1-1  By:  Place (Senate Sponsor - Whitmire)                 H.B. No. 537
    1-2        (In the Senate - Received from the House March 1, 1993;
    1-3  March 2, 1993, read first time and referred to Committee on
    1-4  Criminal Justice; May 18, 1993, reported favorably by the following
    1-5  vote:  Yeas 6, Nays 0; May 18, 1993, sent to printer.)
    1-6                            COMMITTEE VOTE
    1-7                          Yea     Nay      PNV      Absent 
    1-8        Whitmire           x                               
    1-9        Brown              x                               
   1-10        Nelson             x                               
   1-11        Sibley             x                               
   1-12        Sims               x                               
   1-13        Turner             x                               
   1-14        West                                           x   
   1-15                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
   1-16                                AN ACT
   1-17  relating to the procedures for determining eligibility for parole
   1-18  of a defendant serving a life sentence after conviction of a
   1-19  capital felony.
   1-20        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-21        SECTION 1.  Section 7, Article 42.18, Code of Criminal
   1-22  Procedure, is amended by amending Subsection (e) and adding
   1-23  Subsection (g) to read as follows:
   1-24        (e)  Except as provided by Subsection (g) of this section, in
   1-25  <In> matters of parole, release to mandatory supervision, and
   1-26  revocation of parole or mandatory supervision, the board members
   1-27  shall act in panels comprised of three persons in each panel.  The
   1-28  composition of the respective panels shall be designated by the
   1-29  chairman of the board.  A majority of each panel shall constitute a
   1-30  quorum for the transaction of its business, and its decisions shall
   1-31  be by majority vote.
   1-32        (g)  The board may grant parole to a person convicted of a
   1-33  capital felony  only on a two-thirds vote of the entire membership
   1-34  of the board.
   1-35        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-36  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-37  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-38  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-39  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-40  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-41  passage, and it is so enacted.
   1-42                               * * * * *
   1-43                                                         Austin,
   1-44  Texas
   1-45                                                         May 18, 1993
   1-46  Hon. Bob Bullock
   1-47  President of the Senate
   1-48  Sir:
   1-49  We, your Committee on Criminal Justice to which was referred H.B.
   1-50  No. 537, have had the same under consideration, and I am instructed
   1-51  to report it back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do
   1-52  pass and be printed.
   1-53                                                         Whitmire,
   1-54  Chairman
   1-55                               * * * * *
   1-56                               WITNESSES
   1-57  No witnesses appeared on H.B. No. 537.