§ 140B.003.Previously Seized Assets

A first-in-time rule against double pursuit of the same assets, drawn wider than its counterpart.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a remedy may not be assessed against — and the attorney general may not claim or pursue in an action brought under this chapter — any proceeds, contraband, or other property of any kind over which a law enforcement authority has previously asserted jurisdiction under Chapter 59, Code of Criminal Procedure, at the time an action under this chapter was filed.

The added words are "may not claim or pursue". The trafficking chapter bars only the assessment of a remedy; this bars the pursuit as well.

That closes a gap the narrower wording leaves open. A prohibition that bites only at judgment still permits a claim to be pleaded, litigated and argued over property already committed to a criminal forfeiture. Here the property is off the table from the outset.

Chapter 59 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is the criminal asset forfeiture statute, under which law enforcement seizes property connected to crime and forfeits it in a proceeding of its own.

The measuring date is the filing of the action under this chapter, which fixes priority at one identifiable moment.

The reason this chapter needs the rule more than its predecessor does is the number of players. With the Department of Public Safety, the attorney general and every felony prosecutor able to act, the risk is not one civil case colliding with one criminal forfeiture but several agencies reaching for the same property.

Only the property is protected, not the defendant. The action proceeds; it cannot touch those assets.