86R11850 AJZ-D
By: Huffman S.B. No. 1259
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the prosecution of the offense of sexual assault.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Sections 22.011(b) and (f), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(b) A sexual assault under Subsection (a)(1) is without the
consent of the other person if:
(1) the actor compels the other person to submit or
participate by the use of physical force, violence, or coercion;
(2) the actor compels the other person to submit or
participate by threatening to use force or violence against the
other person or to cause harm to the other person, and the other
person believes that the actor has the present ability to execute
the threat;
(3) the other person has not consented and the actor
knows the other person is unconscious or physically unable to
resist;
(4) the actor knows that as a result of mental disease
or defect the other person is at the time of the sexual assault
incapable either of appraising the nature of the act or of resisting
it;
(5) the other person has not consented and the actor
knows the other person is unaware that the sexual assault is
occurring;
(6) the actor has intentionally impaired the other
person's power to appraise or control the other person's conduct by
administering any substance without the other person's knowledge;
(7) the actor compels the other person to submit or
participate by threatening to use force or violence against any
person, and the other person believes that the actor has the ability
to execute the threat;
(8) the actor is a public servant who coerces the other
person to submit or participate;
(9) the actor is a mental health services provider or a
health care services provider who causes the other person, who is a
patient or former patient of the actor, to submit or participate by
exploiting the other person's emotional dependency on the actor;
(10) the actor is a clergyman who causes the other
person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person's
emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman's
professional character as spiritual adviser; [or]
(11) the actor is an employee of a facility where the
other person is a resident, unless the employee and resident are
formally or informally married to each other under Chapter 2,
Family Code; or
(12) the actor is a health care services provider who,
in the course of performing an assisted reproduction procedure on
the other person, uses human reproductive material from a donor
knowing that the other person has not expressly consented to the use
of material from that donor.
(f) An offense under this section is a felony of the second
degree, except that an offense under this section is:
(1) a felony of the first degree if the victim was a
person whom the actor was prohibited from marrying or purporting to
marry or with whom the actor was prohibited from living under the
appearance of being married under Section 25.01; or
(2) a state jail felony if the offense is committed
under Subsection (a)(1) and the actor has not received express
consent as described by Subsection (b)(12).
SECTION 2. Section 22.011(c), Penal Code, is amended by
adding Subdivisions (6) and (7) to read as follows:
(6) "Assisted reproduction" and "donor" have the
meanings assigned by Section 160.102, Family Code.
(7) "Human reproductive material" means:
(A) a human spermatozoon or ovum; or
(B) a human organism at any stage of development
from fertilized ovum to embryo.
SECTION 3. The changes in law made by this Act apply only to
an offense committed on or after the effective date of this Act. An
offense committed before the effective date of this Act is governed
by the law in effect when the offense was committed, and the former
law is continued in effect for that purpose. For purposes of this
section, an offense was committed before the effective date of this
Act if any element of the offense occurred before that date.
SECTION 4. This Act takes effect September 1, 2019.