SB836

SB836 strengthens privacy protections for sexual-assault examination evidence, invasive recordings and eligible victims’ identities, while preserving controlled access for the defense. It also restricts electronic transmission of specified court proceedings involving sexual evidence or testimony. Signed May 13, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Final act; History.

For examination evidence covered by Article 38.435, courts may not make related or derived material—including images or recordings—available for public copying or dissemination during criminal hearings or proceedings. Covered material must be sealed afterward, though a court may lift the seal on a public-interest finding. This concerns examinations under Chapter 56A, Subchapter G; its existing bar on using the victim’s examination evidence to investigate or prosecute the victim for misdemeanors or specified controlled-substance offenses remains. SB836 does not create blanket immunity from prosecution. Section 1; Covered examination framework.

The public-copying/dissemination protection for evidence of invasive visual recording now applies regardless of the victim’s age, rather than only to children under 14. Existing rules requiring these images to be sealed afterward, with possible unsealing on a public-interest finding, remain. For seized invasive-recording images of people 14 or older, and for forensic-examination images or recordings, the court must allow discovery but enter an order prohibiting copying or dissemination of material produced to the defendant or defense attorney. Material produced but not offered and admitted into evidence must be returned to the state or destroyed when the case is finally disposed of. Existing separate rules for invasive recordings of children under 14 remain. These are restrictions on handling evidence, not an automatic bar on the defense seeing it. Sections 2–4; Under-14 discovery rule; retained sealing rules.

Victims covered by Article 58.101—victims of offenses covered by sex-offender-registration law, or offenses in the same criminal episode—may submit a pseudonym form—a request to use a substitute name in public records—to the prosecutor as well as the investigating law-enforcement agency. The receiving office must share it with the other investigating/prosecuting offices. Both police and prosecutors must substitute the pseudonym in their records and protect the form; prosecutors must use it in legal proceedings. The form is still available to the defendant or defense attorney without the special court finding otherwise required for disclosure, so this is not anonymity from the defense. The attorney general’s program must distribute forms to prosecutors too. Sections 6–7; Eligible-victim definition; Court-ordered disclosure rule.

Officers’ written sexual-assault notices must add Chapter 58 rights/procedures and information about requesting a pseudonym. The existing English/Spanish notice and victim-assistance contacts remain. The change expands what victims must be told; it does not newly create every examination, advocate or protective-order right printed in the notice. Section 5.

Courts may not electronically transmit or broadcast covered proceedings in which evidence or testimony depicts or describes sexual acts unless they give notice and obtain express consent from all three: the victim or applicable parent/conservator/guardian, the state’s attorney, and the defendant. Covered proceedings include criminal or civil matters relating to continuous sexual abuse of a young child or disabled individual, indecency with a child, invasive visual recording, sexual assault, indecent assault, aggravated sexual assault, specified sex-trafficking offenses and continuous trafficking based on them, plus the listed criminal and family protective-order proceedings. It is not a blanket closure of every courtroom or a broadcast ban that one party alone can waive. Section 8, including the complete offense and order list.

The evidence, discovery and broadcasting changes apply to hearings or proceedings beginning on or after September 1, 2025; earlier proceedings remain under prior law. The notice change applies to police investigations or responses on or after that date. The act does not impose those same special start-date tests on its pseudonym-form changes. Sections 9–11.