By Horn                                               H.B. No. 1070
       74R3515 PAM-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to an affirmative defense for certain motor vehicle
    1-3  operators charged with illegal possession of a deer carcass.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Chapter 42, Parks and Wildlife Code, is amended
    1-6  by adding Section 42.026 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 42.026.  POSSESSION OF DEER KILLED ON PUBLIC ROAD.  It
    1-8  is a defense to prosecution under Sections 42.002, 42.005, 42.018,
    1-9  and 42.019 that the person charged:
   1-10              (1)  was operating a motor vehicle;
   1-11              (2)  unintentionally caused the motor vehicle to
   1-12  collide with a deer on a public road;
   1-13              (3)  killed the deer as a result of the collision or
   1-14  humanely killed the deer after it had been seriously injured by the
   1-15  collision; and
   1-16              (4)  took possession of the carcass.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-23  passage, and it is so enacted.