By Brown S.B. No. 38
74R1591 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 close relatives of the deceased
1-19 victim, as defined by Article 56.01, shall be admitted. No convict
1-20 shall be permitted by the prison authorities to witness the
1-21 execution.
1-22 SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the
1-23 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-24 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-1 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-2 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-3 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-4 passage, and it is so enacted.