Knowing what happened to someone you love
Let Families See the Evidence — Privately
Letting prosecutors share evidence with a victim's surviving family — privately, without making it public.
DRAFT — not filed Proposed bill for the 90th Texas Legislature · Amends Texas Government Code §552.108 · Last updated November 5, 2026
The problem
Texas public-information law has a trap in it. Under Government Code §552.007(b), information a governmental body voluntarily shows to one person must be made available to any person. Attorney General rulings apply that rule to law-enforcement records: §552.108, the exception prosecutors rely on to withhold investigative material, is discretionary and can be waived by sharing. So a prosecutor who shows a murdered person's family the evidence — to prepare them for trial — risks being unable to withhold that same material from a media records request the next day.
In one Texas case, a family waited more than six months for their daughter's autopsy report; when they finally saw it, they had it for 13 minutes before it became public and the media calls began. The same family first confronted the most graphic evidence at trial, in the courtroom, a short distance from the man accused of killing her — because there was no safe way to prepare them beforehand.
"We had Cayley's autopsy report for thirteen minutes before it was public."
The Legislature already recognised this harm once. After the Santa Fe school shooting, next of kin asked to view evidence, and prosecutors feared allowing it would force public disclosure. SB 435 (88th Legislature, 2023) fixed that — but only for a medical examiner's report and video, and only as a viewing. Everything else a family needs to understand — autopsy photographs, 911 recordings, forensic reports, the offence report — still sits outside the safe harbour.
What the bill does
The bill amends Government Code §552.108 to extend the SB 435 mechanism to a defined list: medical examiner reports and autopsy photographs, crime video and audio, 911 recordings, forensic and laboratory reports, and offence reports. It applies in death cases, for the victim's surviving family as defined in the bill: close relatives and a stepparent who married the victim's parent while the victim was a minor; the family's attorney may attend. No one outside the family may stand in for them — access belongs to the family alone. Families may keep copies of written reports that are already public records; everything else is view-only, under a confidentiality agreement, and a viewing is expressly not a public disclosure and waives nothing.
Sharing is always the prosecutor's choice. A prosecutor may withhold or redact anything that could reasonably jeopardise the investigation or prosecution or anyone's safety — including where a family member is an expected fact witness. But a prosecutor who declines or delays a request must give the family the reason in writing, with an estimated date. Witness statements and suspect interviews are excluded altogether. Recording or redistributing graphic material obtained through a viewing is a criminal offence with a civil remedy.
A severable second part covers the closed case: once a conviction is completely final, including the 90-day U.S. Supreme Court review window, or a non-prosecution agreement is signed, a prosecutor may grant access under the same no-disclosure protection. In a death case, the surviving family are the rights-holders; a living victim of sexual assault or kidnapping is the rights-holder in her own case. Access is discretionary and screened, because evidence files contain material a requester has no right to see; if the prosecutor says no, the only duty owed is a written response.
Why it works
The 2023 law it extends passed the Senate 31–0 and the House 135–0, using the same machinery — permissive authority, confidentiality agreement, no-duplication rule, express non-waiver. Florida protects the same interest from the other direction: Fla. Stat. §406.135 makes autopsy imagery confidential by law, with an express family-access door. Either way: the family sees; the record's public status does not change.
Rights and safeguards
- The accused's rights come first. An acquitted or never-sentenced person's own evidence — his cell phone data, for example — is never accessible under the bill, except evidence that was the victim's own property.
- Defence discovery is untouched. Article 39.14 and the State's constitutional disclosure duties are unchanged, and a breach of this bill is not a ground for suppression or dismissal.
- The prosecutor always decides — and may withhold anything that could jeopardise the case or anyone's safety.
- Nothing becomes less public. No record's public status changes; the public's rights under the Public Information Act are exactly what they are today.
- Families are bound, too. Viewings are under a confidentiality agreement; recording or passing on graphic material is an offence with a civil remedy.
How hard will this be to pass?
The policy itself was unanimous in 2023; this bill extends it to more categories of evidence, which is where the argument will be — expect open-government and defence-bar scrutiny, and a committee fight over breadth rather than over principle. The partisan landscape has also shifted since the dossiers behind this page were first researched (the House and governorship changed parties in 2026 while the Senate stayed Republican under a new lieutenant governor), so every approach is being re-verified before the session.
Cost
No significant fiscal note is expected: the bill is permissive, works through existing prosecutor offices, and its written-response duties are occasional.
Reading on? Below this line the page goes deeper: first a fuller brief for advocates preparing to pitch this bill inside their own organisation, then a technical appendix for attorneys and legislative staff.
How this gap in the law actually plays out
Cayley Mandadi was raped and beaten to death on October 29, 2017. Her family waited more than six months for her autopsy report. When it was finally ready, the justice of the peace sent the family an advance copy — and thirteen minutes later it was a public record and the media calls began. Nobody in that chain acted badly: under §552.007(b), what is shared with one person can be demanded by anyone, and §552.108's protection can be lost by the act of sharing. The system did what the statute tells it to do. The statute is the problem.
The harder consequence came at trial. With no safe way for the prosecutor to prepare them, the family first confronted the most graphic evidence in the courtroom, a short distance from the accused, required to sit still through it. A prosecutor who wants to prepare a family today must weigh that decency against handing the evidence to anyone who asks — and reasonably, most do not prepare families. The family walks in blind.
After the Santa Fe school shooting, the same trap caught the families of the dead there. The Legislature's answer — SB 435 in 2023 — is the proof that this bill's mechanism works and is accepted. Its deliberate narrowness is now the gap: the report and the video can be shown; the photographs, the 911 recording, the forensic reports, and the offence report cannot.
Likely criticism — and our answers
You will meet these arguments in committee, in the press, and possibly inside your own organisation. Each is stated in its strongest fair form. The expected sources are open-government organisations (the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas tracks Public Information Act exceptions; it has taken no position on this bill), press associations, the criminal-defence bar, and some prosecutors — named here as likely critics, which is a different thing from naming an ally: no critic is misrepresented by being expected to argue its own stated mission.
"This breaks the rule against selective disclosure. Government must not favour insiders with public information."
This is the strongest objection, and §552.007(b)'s principle is a real transparency value, not a technicality. The answer is that the bill discloses nothing publicly and changes no record's status: it decouples a family's private viewing from the public's rights — the exact distinction the Legislature drew unanimously in 2023. Everything public today stays public on today's terms; everything excepted today stays excepted on the same grounds. The oversight record remains available to everyone through the Public Information Act once the investigative-jeopardy period passes. What the current rule actually protects, in the case that produced this bill, was a news cycle's thirteen-minute head start over a grieving family — not any public deliberative interest.
"Material will leak. One leaked interview could taint a jury pool or endanger a witness."
The bill is built around that risk. Sharing is view-only except for copies of written reports that are already public records; witness statements and suspect interviews are excluded altogether; viewings happen under a confidentiality agreement; and recording or redistributing graphic material obtained through a viewing is a criminal offence with a civil remedy. The prosecutor — the person with most to lose from a leak — decides item by item, and may withhold or redact anything that could jeopardise the case or anyone's safety.
"Showing the file to family witnesses will shape their testimony — and anything they say back becomes trial material."
Defence discovery under art. 39.14 is broader than anything this bill gives a family: the defence receives copies of material evidence; the family receives a controlled viewing of what the prosecutor chooses. The bill states expressly that it does not limit art. 39.14 or the State's constitutional disclosure duties, so nothing about a viewing can be used to withhold anything from the defence. Preparation of witnesses — including family witnesses — already happens under SB 435 and existing conferral rights; and a prosecutor may withhold material precisely where a family member is an expected fact witness. Finally, a breach of the bill is not a ground for suppression or dismissal, so a viewing cannot become a windfall that overturns a conviction.
"'May' will be read as 'must' — prosecutors will be pressured, and the law will apply unevenly across counties."
The bill creates no right to any particular item and no mechanism to compel sharing; the one duty it adds runs the other way — a prosecutor who declines or delays must say why, in writing, with an estimated date. That is a duty of courtesy and accountability, not of disclosure. Uneven use is a fair description of every discretionary protection in the Public Information Act, including §552.108 itself; the alternative the critics defend is uniform non-sharing, which is uniformity at the family's expense.
"Evidence files contain other people's private information — other victims, witnesses, people never charged."
True, and that is why access is prosecutor-gated and screened rather than entitled. The prosecutor weighs third-party privacy item by item, with redaction authority; material confidential under other law stays protected except where this bill expressly provides otherwise; and the post-finality part is expressly screened for exactly this reason, with only a written response owed on refusal.
Potential allies
These are the kinds of organisation whose missions and records align with this bill. Organisations are deliberately not named here. A group that found its own name on a bill page could reasonably read it as being cited as a supporter, and no organisation has committed to this bill. Named research is kept in the project's working papers; a category below means a natural conversation to have, not a position taken.
- Survivor-run victims' rights organisations in Texas — organisations led by victims and surviving family members; natural allies on victims'-rights legislation generally.
- Family-violence advocacy organisations — the category that supported the adjacent evidence-information rights enacted in 2025 (SB 1120), which this bill complements.
- Sexual-assault victims' advocacy organisations — organisations with documented victims'-rights legislative programmes in recent sessions.
- Family groups formed after mass-casualty attacks — the constituency whose experience produced the 2023 law this bill extends, per the Legislature's own bill analyses.
Prosecutors are a consultee, not a counted ally. The bill protects prosecutors as much as families — it removes the waiver risk a willing prosecutor bears today — but support from the profession cannot be assumed: breadth and leak-risk concerns are live within it. Prosecutor organisations should be consulted before filing, not first met in committee.
Prospective authors
To be published after re-verification. Candidates to approach — several members, identified from their records on this exact policy in the 88th and 89th Legislatures — have been researched and are held in the project's working papers. Because the 2026 election changed the House, the governorship, and the Lieutenant Governorship, no names are published here until rosters and committee assignments for the 90th Legislature are verified in January. What can be said now: the strongest approach follows the team that carried this policy unanimously in 2023, with a bipartisan coauthor pairing.
Talking points
- "This bill finishes what the Legislature started unanimously in 2023."
- "The family sees. The record's public status does not change. Nobody's Public Information Act rights shrink."
- "The prosecutor always decides — and if the answer is no, the family gets the reason in writing instead of silence."
- "The accused's rights are written into the bill ahead of the family's: an acquitted man's own evidence is never accessible to us."
- "Thirteen minutes. That is what one Texas family got with their daughter's autopsy report before the world had it too."
Questions advocates ask
Does a family get to keep anything?
Only copies of written reports that are already public records. Everything else — photographs, recordings, forensic material — is view-only, under a confidentiality agreement.
Can a family member who will testify still be shown evidence?
Only as the prosecutor decides. Expected fact-witness status is an express ground for withholding — the bill protects the trial first.
What about cases that are already over?
A severable second part allows a prosecutor to grant access after a conviction is completely final (or a non-prosecution agreement is signed), under the same no-disclosure protection. On refusal, the prosecutor owes only a written response.
Does this create a new crime?
One narrow one: intentionally recording or redistributing graphic material obtained through a viewing. Merely breaching the confidentiality agreement carries no criminal or civil liability of itself; the remedy for the offence includes injunctive relief and actual damages for a person aggrieved.
Download the draft bill in Texas House format (PDF) — DRAFT, not filed
Current law
| Provision | What it does now |
|---|---|
| Gov't Code §552.007(b) | The no-selective-disclosure rule: public information voluntarily made available to one person must be made available to any person. Attorney General rulings construe it together with the waiver doctrine for discretionary exceptions — the hinge of the whole problem (see OR2011-09069; OR2010-12709 on §552.108's waivability). |
| Gov't Code §552.108(a) | The discretionary law-enforcement exception, including (a)(1): information whose release would interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime. Discretionary means waivable — the exposure this bill removes for family viewings. |
| Gov't Code §552.108(d)–(h) (SB 435, 88th Leg., 2023) | The existing family-viewing safe harbour: a prosecutor may permit a family member to view a medical examiner's report, and a victim or family member to view video evidence, of a crime resulting in death; no duplication; confidentiality agreement permitted; the viewing "is not a voluntary disclosure" under §552.007(b) and waives nothing; savings clause for rights under other law. Passed Senate 31–0, House 135–0; Acts 2023, ch. 195. Two categories, death cases, view-only — the limits this bill addresses. |
| Code Crim. Proc. art. 49.25 §11 | The written autopsy report is presumptively a public record ("may not be withheld, subject to a discretionary exception"); autopsy photographs and x-rays are excepted from required disclosure and treated as confidential. Why the family's report went public in 2017, and why the draft needs SB 435's "notwithstanding other law" form to reach photographs. |
| Code Crim. Proc. arts. 56A.052 / 56A.0521 | The 2025 direction of travel: for enumerated offence categories, a right to information regarding evidence collected and analysis status, with an estimated-date duty when disclosure would interfere (SB 1120, 89th Leg.). Information about evidence — not access to the evidence itself, and no §552.007(b) safe harbour. This bill is the complement, not a duplicate. |
| Fla. Stat. §406.135 (comparator) | Florida solves the same interest from the opposite direction: autopsy imagery is confidential by law, with an express family-access door and penalties for custodian violation. Texas's safe-harbour model is the lighter instrument; the comparison is included because committee staff will raise it. |
What the draft changes, section by section
- Article 1 — the pre-trial safe harbour (Gov't Code §552.108). Extends the SB 435 viewing authority to the defined category list (medical examiner reports and autopsy photographs; crime video and audio; 911 recordings; forensic and laboratory reports; offence reports), in death cases, for "surviving family members" as defined (below). Sharing is permissive; the prosecutor may withhold or redact anything whose sharing could reasonably jeopardise the investigation or prosecution or any person's safety, with expected fact-witness status an express consideration. On declination or delay, the prosecutor must give the family a written statement of the reason and an estimated date. Viewings are non-duplicative and non-waiving by express statutory language carried over from SB 435; copies may be given only of written reports that are public records. Witness statements and suspect interviews are excluded. A savings subsection preserves Public Information Act rights, art. 39.14, and constitutional disclosure duties.
- New §552.1081 — the offence. Intentional or knowing recording or distribution of graphic material obtained through a viewing is an offence (classification to be settled in Legislative Council drafting), with a civil action for injunctive relief and actual damages; mere breach of a confidentiality agreement creates no liability of itself.
- Definitions. "Surviving family member" builds on the art. 56A.001 close-relative list and adds expressly a stepparent who married the victim's parent while the victim was a minor. No designated representative holds any right under the bill; the family's attorney may attend a viewing.
- Article 2 — post-finality access (new §552.1085). A separate, severable, permissive safe harbour: after complete finality (mandate plus expiry of the 90-day certiorari window, including punishment finality on a resentencing remand) or a signed non-prosecution agreement, a prosecutor may grant screened access under the same non-waiver protection. No entitlement is created; on denial the only duty is a written response. Rights-holders: the surviving family in a death case; a living victim of sexual assault or kidnapping in her own case. The accused-preemption rule applies throughout: an acquitted or never-sentenced accused's own evidence is never accessible, except evidence that was the victim's own property.
- Article 3 — construction. Severability between Articles 1 and 2; a violation of the bill is not by itself a ground for suppression, dismissal, or a new trial (mirroring Tex. Const. art. I, §30(e)'s no-defendant-windfall principle); applicability to crimes occurring before, on, or after the effective date.
Legal analysis
- Why the "notwithstanding other law" form matters. The §552.007(b) waiver doctrine bites on discretionary exceptions (§552.108). Material that is confidential by law (§552.101 operating through another statute — autopsy photographs are the paradigm) presents the opposite problem: absent an authorising override, the prosecutor may lack authority to show it at all. The draft copies SB 435(d)'s override and (f)'s twin non-waiver sentences, extended to the new categories and to any custodian acting under a prosecutor's permission.
- The return channel is the real discovery risk — and the draft answers it on the defence's side. What a family member says back after a viewing (new recollections, documents handed over) can become art. 39.14 material or Giglio impeachment, and could be Brady material if exculpatory. The bill deliberately does not make victim–prosecutor communications privileged (that is a separate proposed bill, fought on its own merits); instead it states expressly that nothing in it limits art. 39.14 or constitutional disclosure duties, so no prosecutor can ever cite it to withhold from the defence.
- Witness-exclusion (Rule 614) exposure is flagged, not resolved. A testifying family member who has viewed other evidence may face a "testimony was shaped" cross and a Rule 614 argument. No authority was found in research resolving the Rule's application to a statutory viewing; the practical mitigation in the draft is prosecutor sequencing discretion plus the express fact-witness withholding ground. Counsel for the author should treat this as an open item, not a settled one.
- Federal and court-order carve-outs. A state statute cannot authorise sharing of material governed by federal confidentiality (grand-jury material, CJIS data, child-exploitation material) or under a court's protective order; the draft's savings language preserves those limits, and material under seal is outside the sharing authority.
- No constitutional barrier to the safe harbour itself. The Public Information Act is a statute, not a constitutional entitlement; Texas has no general constitutional open-records guarantee comparable to Florida's art. I, §24(a) (which is why Florida's model had to be drafted as an exemption to a constitutional right). Tex. Const. art. I, §30(c) expressly contemplates legislation enforcing "and other rights of crime victims." (Analysis, offered as such — not a cited holding.)
- Custody. The authority runs to "a prosecutor" permitting a viewing of evidence of a crime in the prosecutor's jurisdiction, following SB 435 — which avoids making the bill's operation depend on which agency physically holds a record. Whether a small conforming amendment to art. 49.25 §11 is advisable, so medical-examiner custodians have express "authority of other law" for autopsy photographs, is a listed question for Legislative Council.
Known seams — flagged for the author and Legislative Council
Published here deliberately: a bill page that hides its drafting issues will not survive staff review, and these are mechanical rather than substantive.
- Amend-and-restate needed. Article 1 as drafted in working form inserts new subsections into §552.108 where SB 435's (d)–(h) already sit, which would duplicate the non-waiver and definitions provisions. The content is settled; Council should restructure Article 1 as an amend-and-restate of §552.108(d)–(k). (This is also why the downloadable draft's subsection lettering should be read as indicative.)
- Confidentiality agreement where copies are given. The draft tracks SB 435 in making the agreement something a prosecutor "may require"; the copies provision is the one element that goes beyond the 2023 view-only model, and the case for making the agreement mandatory at least where a copy is provided should be put to the author expressly.
- Article 2's never-disclose floor. Access under Article 2 is permissive and screened, so nothing must ever be shown; but an express categorical floor (sealed or expunged matter beyond the expunction sentence already present, informant identity, grand-jury material, other victims' information, work product, contraband) is worth Council's attention.
- Offence definition. §552.1081's penalty classification is unsettled, and its "graphic material" definition speaks of audio that "depicts or records the commission of a crime" — a 911 recording is audio about a crime; if the offence is meant to reach redistributed 911 audio, the definition needs a word.
- Verification items. Current text of §552.108(d)–(h) and art. 56A.001 to be confirmed against the current code before filing; final status of HB 155 (89th Leg., next-of-kin autopsy photographs) was unverified at research cut-off; any 89th legislation amending §552.108 to be checked.
Sources
- SB 435 (88th Leg., 2023), enrolled text: capitol.texas.gov; Senate Research Center enrolled bill analysis: capitol.texas.gov
- HB 3729 (88th Leg.) committee-report bill analysis — the Legislature's own statement of the Santa Fe problem: capitol.texas.gov
- Attorney General Open Records Letter Ruling OR2011-09069 (§552.007(b), no selective disclosure): texasattorneygeneral.gov
- SB 1120 (89th Leg., 2025) enrolled bill analysis (art. 56A.0521 evidence-information rights): capitol.texas.gov
- Fla. Stat. §406.135: flhouse.gov
- Tex. Const. art. I, §30: statutes.capitol.texas.gov