By Pickett                                            H.B. No. 1372
         76R5137 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.