74R8517 GWK-D
          By Combs                                              H.B. No. 1562
          Substitute the following for H.B. No. 1562:
          By Rabuck                                         C.S.H.B. No. 1562
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to authorizing the owner of livestock to protect that
    1-3  livestock from certain dangerous animals.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 42.09(e), Penal Code, is amended to read
    1-6  as follows:
    1-7        (e)  It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(5)
    1-8  that the animal was discovered on the person's property in the act
    1-9  of or immediately after injuring or killing the person's goats,
   1-10  sheep, cattle, horses, swine, <or> poultry, or exotic livestock or
   1-11  exotic fowl as defined by Section 142.001, Agriculture Code <and
   1-12  that the person killed or injured the animal at the time of this
   1-13  discovery>.
   1-14        SECTION 2.  The defense provided by Section 42.09(e), Penal
   1-15  Code, as amended by this Act, is available to a defendant charged
   1-16  with the commission of an offense under Section 42.09 committed
   1-17  before, on, or after the effective date of this Act, except that a
   1-18  final conviction for an offense under Section 42.09 that exists on
   1-19  the effective date of this Act is unaffected by this Act.
   1-20        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-21        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-22  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-23  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-24  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.