1-1     By:  Lucio                                             S.B. No. 557
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed February 17, 1999; February 18, 1999,
 1-3     read first time and referred to Committee on Criminal Justice;
 1-4     March 25, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 4,
 1-5     Nays 2; March 25, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the discovery of expert witnesses in a criminal trial.
 1-9           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-10           SECTION 1.  Article 39.14, Code of Criminal Procedure, is
1-11     amended to read as follows:
1-12           Art. 39.14.  DISCOVERY.  (a)  Upon motion of the defendant
1-13     showing good cause therefor and upon notice to the other parties,
1-14     the court in which an action is pending may order the State before
1-15     or during trial of a criminal action therein pending or on trial to
1-16     produce and permit the inspection and copying or photographing by
1-17     or on behalf of the defendant of any designated documents, papers,
1-18     written statement of the defendant, (except written statements of
1-19     witnesses and except the work product of counsel in the case and
1-20     their investigators and their notes or report), books, accounts,
1-21     letters, photographs, objects or tangible things not privileged,
1-22     which constitute or contain evidence material to any matter
1-23     involved in the action and which are in the possession, custody or
1-24     control of the State or any of its agencies.  The order shall
1-25     specify the time, place and manner of making the inspection and
1-26     taking the copies and photographs of any of the aforementioned
1-27     documents or tangible evidence; provided, however, that the rights
1-28     herein granted shall not extend to written communications between
1-29     the State or any of its agents or representatives or employees.
1-30     Nothing in this Act shall authorize the removal of such evidence
1-31     from the possession of the State, and any inspection shall be in
1-32     the presence of a representative of the State.
1-33           (b)  On motion of a party and on notice to the other parties,
1-34     the court in which an action is pending may order one or more of
1-35     the other parties to disclose to the party making the motion the
1-36     name and address of each person the other party may use at trial to
1-37     present evidence under Rules 702, 703, and 705, Texas Rules of
1-38     Evidence.  The court shall specify in the order the time and manner
1-39     in which the other party must make the disclosure to the moving
1-40     party.
1-41           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-42           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-43     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-44     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-45     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-46     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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