1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the duties of a justice of the peace with respect to
 1-3     inquests on dead bodies.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Article 49.10(c), Code of Criminal Procedure, is
 1-6     amended to read as follows:
 1-7           (c)  Except as required by Section 264.514, Family Code, for
 1-8     [For] each body that is the subject of an inquest by a justice of
 1-9     the peace, the justice, in the justice's discretion, shall:
1-10                 (1)  direct a physician to perform an autopsy; or
1-11                 (2)  certify that no autopsy is necessary.
1-12           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-13     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-14     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-15     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-16     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-17     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-18     passage, and it is so enacted.
         _______________________________     _______________________________
             President of the Senate              Speaker of the House
               I certify that H.B. No. 3265 was passed by the House on May
         4, 1999, by the following vote:  Yeas 144, Nays 0, 2 present, not
         voting; and that the House concurred in Senate amendments to H.B.
         No. 3265 on May 26, 1999, by a non-record vote.
                                             _______________________________
                                                 Chief Clerk of the House
               I certify that H.B. No. 3265 was passed by the Senate, with
         amendments, on May 24, 1999, by the following vote:  Yeas 30, Nays
         0.
                                             _______________________________
                                                 Secretary of the Senate
         APPROVED:  _____________________
                            Date
                    _____________________
                          Governor