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Remote Detention Hearing Procedures adopted under Texas Family Code § 54.012 by the 304th and 305th District Courts (the Dallas County Juvenile Courts; signed by Presiding Judge Cheryl Lee Shannon; submitted to the Office of Court Administration September 27, 2023), as registered in the statewide TOPICs local-rules registry (posted 10/07/2023): the statutory plan governing juvenile detention hearings conducted as remote proceedings — participation, confrontation-compliant camera requirements, and evidence handling.
Texas > Dallas County > 304th and 305th District Courts (juvenile detention hearings conducted remotely)
DALLAS COUNTY TEXAS Remote Detention Hearing Procedures I. Plan Adoption In accordance with Texas Family Code 54.012, the 304th & 305th District Courts of Dallas County, adopts the following plan to conduct detention hearings as remote proceedings. II. Definitions A. Detention hearings have the same meaning, scope, and requirements listed in Section 54.01 of the Texas Family Code. B. Remote Proceeding means a proceeding in which one or more of the participants, including a judge, party, attorney, witness, court reporter, or other individual, attends the proceeding remotely through the use of technology and the Internet, including through teleconferencing or video conferencing. III. Procedures for Detention Hearings Conducted as a Remote Proceeding A. The court may, in its discretion, proceed with remote detention hearings, pursuant to Section 54.01 (a) of the Texas Family Code. Consistent with constitutional requirements, the court may allow or require any party, attorney, witness, or court reporter, and may allow any party or parties, to participate in a detention hearing as a remote proceeding. B. The parties to the detention hearing shall have the opportunity to cross-examine any witnesses called during the hearing. C. The camera of any party or witness who provides testimony must provide an unobstructed view of the party or witness providing testimony. An unobstructed view, for the purposes of this plan, means that the individual can be clearly seen, identified, and heard without any barrier other than a clean camera lens. Consistent with constitutional confrontation requirements, if a party or witness is not on camera, or cannot be clearly seen, the Court will not allow the person to testify or continue to testify unless the witness complies with the requirement of an unobstructed view. D. Presentation and retention of physical evidence during remote proceeding detention hearings will be conducted as follows: a. Any physical evidence offered at a remote proceeding detention hearing must be displayed so that the court, attorneys, parties, and witness can view it simultaneously. b. When digital copies of physical evidence can be prepared, such as audio / video recordings, documents, or images, the digital copies should be emailed to the court at jennifer.klaiber@dallascounty.org and to counsel for the parties before the hearing if practicable. c. Physical evidence which cannot be rendered in digital form shall be tendered to the court no later than 2 days after the remote proceeding if the party offering the evidence is not present in the court when it is offered. IV. Submission to Office of Court Administration In accordance with Texas Family Code Section 54.012, this plan was submitted to the Texas Office of Court Administration on September 27, 2023 by posting on https://www.txcourts.gov/rules-forms/local-rules-forms-and-standing-orders/ . [signature] Judge Cheryl Lee Shannon, Presiding Judge, Dallas County Juvenile Courts
Reviewer note: Operative provisions quoted verbatim from the registered statutory plan; signed by Presiding Judge Cheryl Lee Shannon for the juvenile courts; custody sha256 in the registry ledger (doc 1632). [RECOMPOSED 2026-09-21 (corpus-0920 P7, digital-layer lane): the full text of the registered file (sha256 907e2da882bc..., 2 pages) replaces the earlier 1,450-character abstract. Method: pypdfium2 text layer reflowed page-aware, cross-checked word-by-word against PyMuPDF (1 substantive difference(s), 0 page-furniture), owner-corpus candidate sentences 100% (4/4) matched, 0 running header/footer line(s) removed, no U+FFFD/U+FFFE/form-feed debris. NOT yet checked page by page against the render, so confidence is medium with an open re-verification task; flip to high when a reviewer has read every page against the PDF. benchpath-tx-corpus0920-p7-2026-09-21] [BY-EYE CHECK 2026-09-21 (corpus-0920 P11): every page of the registered file (sha256 907e2da882bc..., 2 page(s)) read against the rendered PDF; file-stamp, caption and signature-block defects of the text layer corrected from the render; confidence lifted to high. benchpath-tx-corpus0920-p11-2026-09-21]
3 verbatim requirements on remote appearances in CALEB S. JOHNSTON's division.
6 verbatim requirements on remote appearances in MICHAEL G. KAPLAN's division.