By Haywood                                             S.B. No. 274
       74R2522 NSC-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to access to personal information about jurors.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Article 35.29, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
    1-5  amended to read as follows:
    1-6        Art. 35.29.  Personal information about jurors.  Information
    1-7  collected by the court or by a prosecuting attorney during the jury
    1-8  selection process about a person who serves as a juror, including
    1-9  the juror's name, home address, home telephone number, social
   1-10  security number, driver's license number, and other personal
   1-11  information, is confidential and may not be disclosed by the court,
   1-12  the prosecuting attorney, the defense counsel, or any court
   1-13  personnel except on application by a party in the trial or on
   1-14  application by a bona fide member of the news media acting in such
   1-15  capacity to the court in which the person is serving or did serve
   1-16  as a juror.  On a showing of good cause, the court shall permit
   1-17  disclosure of the information sought.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-19  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-20  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-21  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-22  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-23  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-24  passage, and it is so enacted.