HB1610

HB1610 reorganizes existing Texas laws on family violence, public-health offenses, death investigations and fire investigations. It takes effect April 1, 2027—not in 2025. It replaces four chapters of the Code of Criminal Procedure with newly numbered chapters and updates references elsewhere in Texas law. The act expressly says it is a revision only, with no intended substantive change. That means its main purpose is to make existing law easier to find and use, not to establish a new criminal-justice program. Final law, Articles 1–4.

The replacement chapters cover:

• Family violence prevention: Chapter 5 becomes 5A. This includes officers’ duties to protect victims and enforce protective orders, notices about help, incident reports, foster-home and military notifications, access to certain report information, and rules for prosecutors and courts. These are reorganized existing duties—not newly created victim benefits.
• Public-health offenses: Chapter 9 becomes 9A. Courts’ existing powers concerning businesses harmful to neighborhood health, required bonds, enforcement of those bonds, and destruction of unwholesome food or adulterated medicine after conviction are set out in a revised structure.
• Death investigations: Chapter 49 becomes 49A. Separate groups of provisions govern justices of the peace and medical examiners: which deaths require investigation, autopsies and testing, unidentified bodies, records, reports and cremation. Other provisions address institutional and custody deaths, consent for autopsies not otherwise legally required, and parents’ access to view a deceased person’s body, subject to investigation-related safeguards.
• Fire investigations: Chapter 50 becomes 50A. Existing procedures cover suspected unlawful fires, testimony, jury findings, witnesses, arrest warrants, reporting to court and compensation.

The bill carries forward existing penalties and enforcement provisions within these subjects. Repealing the old chapter numbers does not mean abolishing death investigations, family-violence protections or the other covered duties; replacement provisions take their place. It also updates references in laws covering child-death reviews, death certificates, foster homes, funeral services, public records and related matters. Final law; existing chapters 5, 9, 49 and 50.

The act applies the Code Construction Act to these revisions and directs references to revised laws to their replacement provisions. That construction law also preserves changes made by other bills from the same legislature. For example, HB4490 separately added protection for information about a deceased person’s next of kin; it is not a new protection created by HB1610, nor should its omission from HB1610’s printed text be described as its repeal. HB1610, Section 4.02; Government Code 311.031(c)–(d); HB4490 final law.