Loading…
The Orange County district courts’ (128th/163rd/260th) standing order (signed December 8, 2025) directing the District Clerk to seal, upon filing, any Notice of Intent to Use a Child Abuse Victim’s Hearsay Statements (CCP § 38.072) and its attachments in felony cases, while allowing the court and defense counsel to view the notice.
Texas > Orange County > district courts — felony cases involving child-abuse hearsay notices.
[File stamp: FILED, ANNE REED, 12/18/2025 9:51 AM, District Clerk, Orange County, Texas] IN THE DISTRICT COURTS OF ORANGE COUNTY, TEXAS 128TH, 163RD, AND 260TH JUDICIAL DISTRICTS STANDING ORDER REGARDING SEALING OF NOTICES OF INTENT TO USE CHILD ABUSE VICTIM'S HEARSAY STATEMENTS The District Courts of Orange County, Texas, 128th, 163rd, and 260th Judicial Districts (hereinafter jointly referred to as "the Courts") find and order as follows: FINDINGS The Courts find as follows: 1. The State is required to give notice to the defense if they intend to offer hearsay statements of child abuse victims pursuant to Section 38.072 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. 2. In Texas, these notices are not automatically sealed. 3. The notices typically contain information which is sexually explicit concerning a minor child as well as the child's name or their parent/guardian's name(s). 4. The court's file that they are filed in is public. 5. The defense is entitled to view the notice. ORDERS The Courts order as follows: 1. The District Clerk of Orange County, Texas shall seal upon filing and prevent the public from viewing any Notice of Intent to Use Child Abuse Victim's Hearsay Statements and any attachments in felony cases before the courts. 2. The courts and the defense attorney shall be entitled to view the Notice of Intent to Use Child Abuse Victim's Hearsay Statements and any attachments. Signed the 18th [handwritten] day of December, 2025. [signature] Courtney Arkeen, Judge 128th District Court [signature] Rex Peveto, Judge 163rd District Court [signature] Steve Parkhurst, Judge 260th District Court
Reviewer note: AJR-2 East cohort (Angelina/Orange/Liberty/Chambers/Jasper/Newton). Source instrument read via text/vision lane; classified RULE under the records-vs-rules doctrine. Composed benchpath-ajr2-east. Applicability 2026-09-09 (fix program 2026-09-09, Phase 5, audit M7): specific -> universal — the row binds every court in its state/circuit/county scope and names no court, judge or division. [RECOMPOSED 2026-09-21 (corpus-0920 P7, digital-layer lane): the full text of the registered file (sha256 baa5e882b6eb..., 2 pages) replaces the earlier 281-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% (3/3) 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 baa5e882b6eb..., 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]
Standing order of the 109th Judicial District Court for every pending or later-filed case in Andrews, Winkler and Crane Counties: any attorney or self-represented litigant who uses any form of artificial intelligence for legal research or drafting in a case must, before using AI-generated information in a court submission or proceeding, sign and submit the court's certification form stating that all language, quotations, sources, citations, arguments and legal analysis created or contributed to by generative AI were verified as accurate by a human through traditional (non-AI) legal sources, and acknowledging responsibility and potential sanctions for their or their co-counsel's failure to comply. Effective immediately; in effect until rescinded or replaced.
Standing order of the 109th Judicial District Court for every pending or later-filed case in Andrews, Winkler and Crane Counties: any attorney or self-represented litigant who uses any form of artificial intelligence for legal research or drafting in a case must, before using AI-generated information in a court submission or proceeding, sign and submit the court's certification form stating that all language, quotations, sources, citations, arguments and legal analysis created or contributed to by generative AI were verified as accurate by a human through traditional (non-AI) legal sources, and acknowledging responsibility and potential sanctions for their or their co-counsel's failure to comply. Effective immediately; in effect until rescinded or replaced.