§ 22.011.Privilege from Arrest

An old privilege serving a practical purpose: witnesses must be able to come to court.

A witness is privileged from arrest while attending, going to, and returning from court.

Subsection (b) computes the protected period by allowing one day of travel for each 150 miles of the distance from the courthouse to the witness's residence. A witness living 300 miles away is protected for two days of travel each way plus the attendance.

The 150-mile unit is the same one the subpoena section uses, and treating it as a day's travel is a formula from an era of slower journeys that the Legislature has left in place.

Subsection (c) is the exception, and it is substantial: the section does not apply to an arrest for a felony, treason, or breach of the peace.

What remains protected is arrest on civil process and for minor offences. The privilege was never a shelter for serious crime — its purpose is to stop a party from having an inconvenient witness detained on the way to the courthouse, and to reassure a witness with a civil judgment or a minor warrant outstanding that testifying is not an arrest risk.

A witness deterred from attending defeats the subpoena power entirely, and this section removes one reason for staying away.