By Green H.B. No. 3243
76R8978 CAG-D
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to authorizing the owner of livestock to protect that
1-3 livestock 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.