SB1660

What evidence is covered. Article 38.50 concerns blood or urine specimens collected in investigations of alleged Penal Code Chapter 49 intoxication offenses. It is not a general rule for every item of forensic evidence or every breath-test record. The annual report goes from a crime laboratory holding that evidence to the prosecutor’s office in the county of the alleged offense and gives the date the laboratory received it—not a calculated destruction deadline. Final law, section 1; Original specimen definition, section 1.

The new response process. A prosecutor may require a written destruction-approval request for cases in which that office presented the indictment, information or juvenile petition and the evidence falls under retention subsection (c)(2) or (3). If the office does not provide a written denial before the 90th day after a request delivered by hand, certified mail, or email to its designated address, the custodian may destroy the evidence if the applicable retention period has expired. This is permission, not an order to destroy it. The clock runs from the request, not from collection, testing or the laboratory’s annual report. Final law, section 1, subsection (h).

The underlying periods remain important. Subsection (c)(2) generally requires retention through the defendant’s sentence or community supervision, or the applicable juvenile commitment or supervision. Subsection (c)(3) addresses acquittal, dismissal with prejudice, or the specified juvenile no-finding disposition. The separate rule for an unfiled charge or dismissal without prejudice generally uses the longer of two years or the limitations period. Existing notice requirements remain; the new 90-day process does not turn all specimens into disposable evidence after three months. Existing retention and notice provisions, section 1; Final law.

Although SB1660 repeats email as a notice method and references both (c)(2) and (3), those features were already enacted in 2021. The meaningful additions here are the laboratory’s annual report and the written-denial deadline and request methods. The existing option for oral and written notice when requesting a specimen under Transportation Code section 724.015 is retained. 2021 law, sections 1–2; Final law, section 1.

Changes during passage. The introduced bill would have required laboratories to report the retention-expiration date, allowed a 60-day response period for felony evidence, and barred prosecutor approval requirements for expired misdemeanor evidence. The Senate substitute replaced that approach with receipt-date reporting and the 90-day rule, without that felony/misdemeanor split. The Senate-passed and House committee texts match the final operative provisions. Official text versions; Introduced proposal; Final law.

The sole indexed floor amendment, by Jolanda Jones, passed the House. It proposed certified-mail destruction notices to the convicted defendant or adjudicated child and counsel, special address rules, 120-day or one-year waiting provisions depending on confinement, and a bar on destruction while a written objection remained unwithdrawn. Conference removed those additions and restored the Senate version; both chambers adopted that report June 1. The added safeguards were proposals, not provisions of the enacted SB1660. This does not erase notice obligations already in existing law. Amendment disposition; Jones amendment; Conference report and versions; Passage history.

Timing. The act took effect September 1, 2025. Its specific transition rule applies the amended destruction-approval subsection (h) to evidence whose retention period expires on or after that date. Evidence whose period expired earlier remains governed by the former law. That transition is tied to retention expiry, not simply the date the specimen was collected. Final law, sections 2–3.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Annual reporting should give prosecutors a more regular picture of specimens held by laboratories. A defined response period may help custodians resolve expired-storage requests, while prosecutors must track those requests and act before the denial deadline if they want to stop destruction under this process. The trade-off is that evidence can become unavailable for later testing once it is lawfully destroyed; the final law did not adopt the House’s additional objection mechanism. The sources do not quantify storage savings or effects on case outcomes. Final law; Discarded additional safeguards.

The final/conference fiscal note expects no significant state or local fiscal impact and assumes reporting costs can be absorbed with existing resources. This is not a claim that reporting is costless. The introduced-version estimate of $2,812,444 in state general-revenue costs for fiscal years 2026–2027 and eight additional full-time-equivalent positions reflected the more demanding expiry-date reporting proposal; it is not the fiscal estimate for the final law. SB1660 makes no appropriation and provides no quantified final savings forecast. Final fiscal note; Introduced-version estimate.