By:  Whitmire                                          S.B. No. 759
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to immunity for crime victims in lawsuits arising from
    1-2  information filed with courts or the parole board.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 5(a), Article 56.02, Code of Criminal
    1-5  Procedure, is amended by adding Subsection (e) to read as follows:
    1-6        (e)  A person who exercises rights under this Act by giving
    1-7  information to a government agency shall absolute immunity from
    1-8  liability for any communication tort committed.  Agencies which
    1-9  make decisions based on upon such information should consider this
   1-10  immunity when assigning weight to such information contained in
   1-11  unsworn declarations.  The information given to crime victims under
   1-12  Subsection (a)(7) should include the information that unsworn
   1-13  declarations will be given less weight than sworn declarations,
   1-14  that sworn declarations are made under penalty of perjury, and how
   1-15  sworn declarations may be made.
   1-16        Section 5(b).  The legislative intent of Subsection 5(a) of
   1-17  this Act is to prevent criminals and accused criminals from suing
   1-18  crime victims, their guardians, and their relatives for exercising
   1-19  their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act.  This Act in no
   1-20  way reflects upon whether a common law immunity for such
   1-21  communications exists, although the legislature sincerely hopes
   1-22  that such an immunity exists.  If such an immunity does exist, this
   1-23  statutory immunity is cumulative in effect.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
    2-2        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-7  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-8  passage, and it is so enacted.