1-1     By:  Haggerty (Senate Sponsor - Jackson)              H.B. No. 2593
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 19, 1999;
 1-3     April 20, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Criminal Justice; May 10, 1999, reported favorably by the following
 1-5     vote:  Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 10, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the prosecution of certain offenses related to taking
 1-9     an alcoholic beverage into a correctional facility.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 38.11, Penal Code, is amended by adding
1-12     Subsection (i) to read as follows:
1-13           (i)  It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under
1-14     Subsection (b) that the actor:
1-15                 (1)  is a duly authorized member of the clergy with
1-16     rights and privileges granted by an ordaining authority that
1-17     includes administration of a religious ritual or ceremony requiring
1-18     the presence or consumption of an alcoholic beverage; and
1-19                 (2)  takes four ounces or less of an alcoholic beverage
1-20     into the correctional facility and personally consumes all of the
1-21     alcoholic beverage or departs from the facility with any portion of
1-22     the beverage not consumed.
1-23           SECTION 2.  (a)  The change in law made by this Act applies
1-24     only to an offense committed on or after the effective date of this
1-25     Act.  For purposes of this section, an offense is committed before
1-26     the effective date of this Act if any element of the offense occurs
1-27     before the effective date.
1-28           (b)  An offense committed before the effective date of this
1-29     Act is covered by the law in effect when the offense was committed,
1-30     and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.
1-31           SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-32           SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-33     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-34     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-35     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-36     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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