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.