By:  Jones, D.                                        H.B. No. 1753
       73R6482 GWK-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the admissibility of evidence at the punishment stage
    1-3  of a criminal trial.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 3(a), Article 37.07, Code of Criminal
    1-6  Procedure, is amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (a)  Regardless of the plea and whether the punishment be
    1-8  assessed by the judge or the jury, evidence may, in a manner
    1-9  consistent with <as permitted by> the Rules of Evidence, be offered
   1-10  by the state and the defendant as to any matter the court deems
   1-11  relevant to any issue regarding punishment <sentencing>, including
   1-12  the prior criminal record of the defendant, his general reputation,
   1-13  <and> his character, and evidence of unadjudicated extraneous acts
   1-14  of the defendant.  <The term prior criminal record means a final
   1-15  conviction in a court of record, or a probated or suspended
   1-16  sentence that has occurred prior to trial, or any final conviction
   1-17  material to the offense charged.>  A court may consider as a factor
   1-18  in mitigating punishment the conduct of a defendant while
   1-19  participating in a program under Article 17.40 or 17.42(a) of this
   1-20  code as a condition of release on bail. Additionally,
   1-21  notwithstanding Rule 609(d), Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence,
   1-22  evidence may be offered by the state and the defendant of an
   1-23  adjudication of delinquency based on a violation by the defendant
   1-24  of a penal law of the grade of felony unless:
    2-1              (1)  the adjudication is based on conduct committed
    2-2  more than five years before the commission of the offense for which
    2-3  the person is being tried; and
    2-4              (2)  in the five years preceding the date of the
    2-5  commission of the offense for which the person is being tried, the
    2-6  person did not engage in conduct for which the person has been
    2-7  adjudicated as a delinquent child or a child in need of supervision
    2-8  and did not commit an offense for which the person has been
    2-9  convicted.
   2-10        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-11  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-12  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-13  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-14  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-15  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-16  passage, and it is so enacted.