By:  Brown                                             S.B. No. 346
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to funds used to compensate victims of crime.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Chapter 61, Government Code, is amended by adding
    1-4  Section 61.003 to read as follows:
    1-5        Sec. 61.003.  DONATION OF REIMBURSEMENT.  (a)  A person
    1-6  responsible under Section 62.013 or 62.014 for summoning
    1-7  prospective jurors to appear for jury service shall provide to each
    1-8  prospective juror a form letter that when signed by the prospective
    1-9  juror directs the county treasurer to donate all or part of the
   1-10  prospective juror's reimbursement for jury service to the
   1-11  compensation to victims of crime fund under Subchapter B, Chapter
   1-12  56, Code of Criminal Procedure.
   1-13        (b)  The county treasurer shall send all donations made under
   1-14  this section to the state treasurer, at the time and in the manner
   1-15  prescribed by the attorney general, for deposit to the credit of
   1-16  the compensation to victims of crime fund.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995, and
   1-18  applies only to an oral jury summons made or a written jury summons
   1-19  sent on or after January 1, 1996.  A jury summons made or sent
   1-20  before January 1, 1996, is governed by the law as it existed
   1-21  immediately before the effective date of this Act, and that law is
   1-22  continued in effect for that purpose.
   1-23        SECTION 3.  Not later than December 1, 1995, the attorney
   1-24  general shall adopt rules consistent with this Act prescribing
    2-1  procedures to be followed by the county treasurers and the state
    2-2  treasurer in collecting donations from jurors under Section 61.003,
    2-3  Government Code, as added by this Act.
    2-4        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-5  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-6  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-7  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-8  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.