SB1667

Applications and notices: People entitled through the specified veterans-treatment or mental-health court programs must supply the information required for an expunction petition. Petitions and the prosecutor’s agency list for mistaken-identity applications must include applicable physical and email addresses; they cannot list a state/local agency twice or give separate contacts for its different divisions. District clerks must maintain a website list of the specified state/local agencies and entities with applicable email addresses, but are not responsible for guaranteeing that the website or a petition lists every relevant entity. Existing identity, arrest and case information requirements remain. Final law; Specialty-court eligibility context.

The hearing remains no earlier than the 30th day after filing. The court sends both the petition and hearing notice to listed recipients other than central federal criminal-record repositories; DPS handles notice to those listed federal repositories. Clerks need not send the petition or hearing notice to the Office of Court Administration. State/local agencies with identified email addresses must accept electronic copies. For final orders, clerks send copies to DPS, the Office of Court Administration and listed state/local governmental recipients; a certified copy is no longer required, although certified-mail delivery remains an alternative. Final law.

Fees: Clerks cannot charge to electronically transmit petitions/hearing notices or expunction orders when the applicable filing provides electronic contact information. The act requires $25 for each listed recipient unable to receive electronic transmission at the petition/notice stage, and a separate $25-per-recipient provision applies to covered final-order delivery. These are not one flat $25 fee for the entire case. The act repeals Article 102.006, which contained district-court filing and mailing fees and the $100 justice/municipal-court filing fee. That repeal does not by itself establish that every expunction-related service is free under every other law; applicable no-fee protections still matter. Final law; Repealed fee article; Specialty-court no-fee provision.

Records after expunction: Subject to the existing acquittal, mistaken-identity, financial-record and release exceptions, the clerk must destroy the covered files on the first anniversary of the order, instead of within the former 60-day-to-one-year window. The order itself is excluded from destruction. It must remain confidential, with a copy available only to its subject after proper identification, subject to further court orders on access. The old prosecutor advance-notice/objection procedure and destruction-certification subsections are repealed. Existing rules for returning or removing identifiers from records and for correcting mistaken-identity records remain; several provisions change “named” to “listed” without creating a new universal deletion rule. Final law; Earlier court-record rules; Financial-record exception.

Courts must retain the narrowly defined “federal prohibited person information” despite expunction. It concerns specified court determinations, including certain mental-health, competency and guardianship decisions—not all medical records or all people receiving mental-health care. It remains confidential and may be released to DPS or the FBI only for the specified record audits or verifying inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The act does not itself create a firearm ban for everyone seeking expunction. Final law; Defined information; Audit context.

Timing: The application/petition changes apply to filings beginning September 1, 2025; the final-order notice changes apply to orders becoming final beginning that date. The specified retention/destruction changes reach records held by clerks on or after that date. Repeal of the former fee article applies to orders entered beginning that date regardless of the arrest date. Earlier filings remain under former law for the specified petition provisions. The act also prevails over conflicting 2025 nonsubstantive code corrections. Final law.

The Senate substitute added the confidential federal-information retention provision and included it in the records-on-hand transition. Otherwise, the introduced policy survived into the Senate committee, Senate-passed, House committee and final versions; the latter four operative texts match. No floor amendments are indexed. Introduced; Senate substitute; Senate-passed; House committee; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

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

Eligible applicants may benefit from electronic delivery without transmission charges and later access to a confidential copy of their order. Those needing non-electronic delivery can face the new per-recipient charges. Clerks must maintain contact lists, send notices and preserve the specified confidential records; DPS handles federal notifications. Actual costs depend on recipients and applicable fee protections, so the law does not guarantee a cheaper or faster case for every applicant. Final law.

The April 7 introduced and April 10 substitute fiscal notes say fiscal effects cannot be determined because case-level data and counts of affected petitions/orders are unavailable. The new $25 fees may produce local revenue while old fees are repealed; neither note quantifies the net state/local effect, household savings or a multiyear total. The act makes no appropriation. Introduced fiscal note; Substitute fiscal note; Final law.