By Pickett, Gallego                                   H.B. No. 1619

         75R4961 JMC-F                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to an application for issuance of a subpoena.

 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-4           SECTION 1.  Article 24.03(a), Code of Criminal Procedure, is

 1-5     amended to read as follows:

 1-6           (a)  Before the clerk or his deputy shall be required or

 1-7     permitted to issue a subpoena in any felony case pending in any

 1-8     district or criminal district court of this State of which he is

 1-9     clerk or deputy, the defendant or his attorney or the State's

1-10     attorney shall make an [written, sworn] application in writing or

1-11     by electronic means to such clerk for each witness desired.  Such

1-12     application shall state the name of each witness desired, the

1-13     location and vocation, if known, and that the testimony of said

1-14     witness is material to the State or to the defense.  The

1-15     application must be filed with the clerk [and placed with the

1-16     papers in the cause] and made available to both the State and the

1-17     defendant.  Except as provided by Subsection (b) [of this article],

1-18     as far as is practical such clerk shall include in one subpoena the

1-19     names of all witnesses for the State and for defendant, and such

1-20     process shall show that the witnesses are summoned for the State or

1-21     for the defendant.  When a witness has been served with a subpoena,

1-22     attached or placed under bail at the instance of either party in a

1-23     particular case, such execution of process shall inure to the

1-24     benefit of the opposite party in such case in the event such

 2-1     opposite party desires to use such witness on the trial of the

 2-2     case, provided that when a witness has once been served with a

 2-3     subpoena, no further subpoena shall be issued for said witness.

 2-4           SECTION 2.  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,

 2-9     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-10     passage, and it is so enacted.