By Green                                              H.B. No. 3243
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to authorizing the owner of exotic livestock or fowl to
 1-3     protect that livestock or fowl from certain dangerous animals.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 42.09(e), Penal Code, is amended to read
 1-6     as follows:
 1-7           (e)  It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(5)
 1-8     that the animal was discovered on the person's property in the act
 1-9     of or immediately after injuring or killing the person's goats,
1-10     sheep, cattle, horses, swine, [or] poultry, or exotic livestock or
1-11     exotic fowl as defined by Section 142.001, Agriculture Code, and
1-12     that the person killed or injured the animal at the time of this
1-13     discovery.
1-14           SECTION 2.  The defense provided by Section 42.09(e), Penal
1-15     Code, as amended by this Act, is available to a defendant charged
1-16     with the commission of an offense under Section 42.09 committed
1-17     before, on, or after the effective date of this Act, except that a
1-18     final conviction for an offense under Section 42.09 that exists on
1-19     the effective date of this Act is unaffected by this Act.
1-20           SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-21           SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-22     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-23     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-24     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-1     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.