By:  Shapleigh                                         S.B. No. 851
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to an application for issuance of a subpoena.
 1-2           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-3           SECTION 1.  Chapter 30, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is
 1-4     amended by adding Section 30.011 to read as follows:
 1-5           Sec. 30.011.  ELECTRONIC SUBPOENA APPLICATION.  In addition
 1-6     to any other procedure permitted under state law or by court rule,
 1-7     an application for issuance of a subpoena may be made by electronic
 1-8     means.
 1-9           SECTION 2.  Subsection (a), Article 24.03, Code of Criminal
1-10     Procedure, is amended to read as follows:
1-11           (a)  Before the clerk or his deputy shall be required or
1-12     permitted to issue a subpoena in any felony case pending in any
1-13     district or criminal district court of this State of which he is
1-14     clerk or deputy, the defendant or his attorney or the State's
1-15     attorney shall make an [written, sworn] application in writing or
1-16     by electronic means to such clerk for each witness desired.  Such
1-17     application shall state the name of each witness desired, the
1-18     location and vocation, if known, and that the testimony of said
1-19     witness is material to the State or to the defense.  The
1-20     application must be filed with the clerk [and placed with the
1-21     papers in the cause] and made available to both the State and the
1-22     defendant.  Except as provided by Subsection (b) [of this article],
1-23     as far as is practical such clerk shall include in one subpoena the
1-24     names of all witnesses for the State and for defendant, and such
 2-1     process shall show that the witnesses are summoned for the State or
 2-2     for the defendant.  When a witness has been served with a subpoena,
 2-3     attached or placed under bail at the instance of either party in a
 2-4     particular case, such execution of process shall inure to the
 2-5     benefit of the opposite party in such case in the event such
 2-6     opposite party desires to use such witness on the trial of the
 2-7     case, provided that when a witness has once been served with a
 2-8     subpoena, no further subpoena shall be issued for said witness.
 2-9           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-10     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-11     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-12     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-13     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-14     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-15     passage, and it is so enacted.