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ESPECIALLY in view of how our rights often get treated in a political forum.

That being said, I feel pretty good about this. It seems that the committee substitutes for the original bills actually made them better.

I was originally very concerned about the removal of the provision granting recovery of court costs and attorney fees. This was before I was aware that the changes also included "immunity" from civil action if you were justified according to the legislation. Once I became aware of the immunity provision I felt MUCH better. This may make that provision unnecessary but in any case you still have the right to attempt to recover these costs if necessary. It is just not in this bill, now.

The reason I have confidence in the effectiveness of these bills to protect us is the COMBINATION of the improvements in justification AND immunity. As was said above this will give us strong double edged protection. Both provisions of this have to be overcome before civil action can proceed. This is going to really cool the enthusiasm of bottom feeder alleged attorney ambulance chasers (not to be confused with REAL lawyers) before the bring civil action.

Also, there was so much complaining from Harris county and other county DA's at the hearings of how horribly difficult it would be for them to overcome the presumptions of justification, this make feel a bit more secure both from criminal AND civil action.

I am not a lawyer so I hope that Charles or another REAL attorney here will review my thoughts for accuracy...but I feel pretty good so far.

When I attended the Committee hearing on HB284, there was discussion of the committee substitute of the orignal bill. I never saw the substitute which is the version which was sent on to the full house with a favorable recommendation. I will post links to the text and analysis later.

In the original version of the bill, there was an "affirmative defense' to civil liability if the original intended victim met certain conditions.
1. that the use of force was justified as stated in the law
2. that the actor did not provoke the confrontation
3. that the actor had a right to be at the location
4. that the actor was not otherwise engaged in criminal activity at the time.

The passed committee changes "affirmative defense" to "IMMUNITY FROM CIVIL ACTION" Folks this is HUGE.

Also, as of 3-14-07 it has been place on the 'Major State Calender". This is good.

As a side note the bill has 1 Author (Driver), 4 Joint Authors, and 102 Co-authors out of a total of 150 members in the House.

Here is the analysis of the bill in HTML format:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/ ... 00284H.htm

Here is the revised text of the bill in HTML format:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/ ... 00284H.htm

These are also available in Word and PDF formats if you prefer those.