1-1     By:  Place (Senate Sponsor - Whitmire)                 H.B. No. 312

 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House March 17, 1997;

 1-3     March 18, 1997, read first time and referred to Committee on

 1-4     Criminal Justice; May 15, 1997, reported favorably by the following

 1-5     vote:  Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 15, 1997, sent to printer.)

 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-7                                   AN ACT

 1-8     relating to the offense of tampering with a witness.

 1-9           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

1-10           SECTION 1.  Section 36.05(a), Penal Code, is amended to read

1-11     as follows:

1-12           (a)  A person commits an offense if, with intent to influence

1-13     the witness, he offers, confers, or agrees to confer any benefit on

1-14     a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding or

1-15     coerces a witness or prospective witness in an official proceeding:

1-16                 (1)  to testify falsely;

1-17                 (2)  to withhold any testimony, information, document,

1-18     or thing;

1-19                 (3)  to elude legal process summoning him to testify or

1-20     supply evidence;

1-21                 (4)  to absent himself from an official proceeding to

1-22     which he has been legally summoned;  or

1-23                 (5)  to abstain from, discontinue, or delay the

1-24     prosecution of another [witness].

1-25           SECTION 2.  (a)  The change in law made by this Act applies

1-26     only to an offense committed on or after the effective date of this

1-27     Act.  For purposes of this section, an offense is committed before

1-28     the effective date of this Act if any element of the offense occurs

1-29     before that date.

1-30           (b)  An offense committed before the effective date of this

1-31     Act is covered by the law in effect when the offense was committed,

1-32     and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.

1-33           SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.

1-34           SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-35     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-36     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-37     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

1-38     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.

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