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Senate Bill 815 |
Senate Author: Rodríguez |
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Effective: Vetoed |
House Sponsor: Moody et al. |
Previous law required a record of communication between a magistrate and a person arrested under warrant and taken before the magistrate to be preserved for certain optional time periods based on the category of the offense. Senate Bill 815 amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to require instead such a record to be retained in compliance with the applicable local government records retention schedule prepared by the director and librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Governor's Reason for Veto: "The law requires that arrested individuals be brought before a magistrate to be informed about the charges against them and to receive important warnings about their rights. Records must be made of these communications, and while a statute currently fixes the periods for which courts must retain the records, Senate Bill 815 would instead have delegated to an agency the discretion to set—and change—the retention periods. Administrative flexibility is not a virtue in this instance. The Legislature should be the one to provide clear direction on this issue."