By: Brown, West S.B. No. 38
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to individuals permitted to attend the execution of a
1-2 capital felon.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Article 43.20, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
1-5 amended to read as follows:
1-6 Art. 43.20. PRESENT AT EXECUTION. The following persons may
1-7 be present at the execution: the executioner, and such persons as
1-8 may be necessary to assist him in conducting the execution,<;> the
1-9 members of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice <Board of Directors
1-10 of the Department of Corrections>, two physicians, including the
1-11 prison physician, the spiritual advisor of the condemned, the
1-12 chaplains of the institutional division of the Texas Department of
1-13 Criminal Justice <Department of Corrections>, the county judge and
1-14 sheriff of the county in which the unit of the institutional
1-15 division <Department of Corrections> is situated, <and> any of the
1-16 relatives or friends of the condemned person that he may request,
1-17 not exceeding five in number, and close relatives of the deceased
1-18 victim, as defined by Article 56.01 of this code, not exceeding
1-19 five in number shall be admitted. No convict shall be permitted by
1-20 the prison authorities to witness the execution.
1-21 SECTION 2. 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,
2-2 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-3 passage, and it is so enacted.