By Bailey                                              H.B. No. 285
       74R1978 GWK-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to individuals permitted to attend the execution of a
    1-3  capital felon.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Article 43.20, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        Art. 43.20.  PRESENT AT EXECUTION.  The following persons may
    1-8  be present at the execution:  the executioner, and such persons as
    1-9  may be necessary to assist him in conducting the execution,<;> the
   1-10  members of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice <Board of Directors
   1-11  of the Department of Corrections>, two physicians, including the
   1-12  prison physician, the spiritual advisor of the condemned, the
   1-13  chaplains of the institutional division of the Texas Department of
   1-14  Criminal Justice <Department of Corrections>, the county judge and
   1-15  sheriff of the county in which the unit of the institutional
   1-16  division <Department of Corrections> is situated, <and> any of the
   1-17  relatives or friends of the condemned person that he may request,
   1-18  not exceeding five in number, and not more than five close
   1-19  relatives of the deceased victim, as defined by Article 56.01,
   1-20  shall be admitted.  No convict shall be permitted by the prison
   1-21  authorities to witness the execution.
   1-22        SECTION 2.  Article 56.02, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
   1-23  amended by adding Subsection (e) to read as follows:
   1-24        (e)  A close relative of a deceased victim, following
    2-1  conviction of the defendant in the case for capital murder, is
    2-2  entitled to:
    2-3              (1)  notification from the director of the
    2-4  institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
    2-5  of the date, time, and place of the impending execution of the
    2-6  defendant in the case; and
    2-7              (2)  attend the execution, as provided by Article
    2-8  43.20.
    2-9        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-10  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-11  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-12  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-13  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-14  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-15  passage, and it is so enacted.