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Senate Bill 1630 |
Senate Author: Buckingham |
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Effective: 9-1-17 |
House Sponsor: Howard |
Senate Bill 1630 amends the Health and Safety Code to require a person who discovers an unverified cemetery to provide notice to the Texas Historical Commission and to the applicable landowner on record. The bill establishes requirements and procedures for the commission to investigate an unverified cemetery and determine whether sufficient evidence supports the existence of a cemetery and provides for notification of the commission's determination to be given to the landowner. The bill requires notice of the discovery of an unknown or abandoned cemetery to be provided to the landowner on record concurrently with the notice of the discovery provided to the county clerk. The bill authorizes a justice of the peace acting as coroner or medical examiner, or another person authorized to supervise the removal of remains, to investigate or remove remains in an unmarked grave contained within an abandoned, unknown, or unverified cemetery without written order of the state registrar or the registrar's designee. The bill includes municipal or county cemeteries as locations to which human remains removed from an unknown or abandoned cemetery on a court's order may be relocated. The bill exempts an unverified cemetery from statutory provisions relating to access to a cemetery.