By Place H.B. No. 312
75R1567 JMC-F
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to the offense of tampering with a witness.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Section 36.05(a), Penal Code, is amended to read
1-5 as follows:
1-6 (a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to influence
1-7 the witness, he offers, confers, or agrees to confer any benefit on
1-8 a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding or
1-9 coerces a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding:
1-10 (1) to testify falsely;
1-11 (2) to withhold any testimony, information, document,
1-12 or thing;
1-13 (3) to elude legal process summoning him to testify or
1-14 supply evidence;
1-15 (4) to absent himself from an official proceeding to
1-16 which he has been legally summoned; or
1-17 (5) to abstain from, discontinue, or delay the
1-18 prosecution of another [witness].
1-19 SECTION 2. (a) The change in law made by this Act applies
1-20 only to an offense committed on or after the effective date of this
1-21 Act. For purposes of this section, an offense is committed before
1-22 the effective date of this Act if any element of the offense occurs
1-23 before that date.
1-24 (b) An offense committed before the effective date of this
2-1 Act is covered by the law in effect when the offense was committed,
2-2 and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.
2-3 SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.
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.