Defendant is charged with Harassment back in 2010. He is a no arrest for a long time, but he's finally arrested, the complainant relocated, and everyone is ready for trial. As the State is preparing for trial, we find that our file does not have a copy of the information, so we go to get one from the clerk's office. And they can't find the file. And because the case is so old, it wasn't scanned into their system. We have no filemarked copy to substitute. The defense attorney does (I think), but I can't make him give it up. The statute has run, so I can't just refile.

Any ideas?

You have a statutory answer: CCP Art. 21.25 specifically deals with a lost information..


You essentially tell the court the original is lost, offer what the information was, and make a written statement that your offered is substantially the same as the other. Pg 283 of the TDCAA Criminal Laws of Texas. There are case cites following. They are 101 years old, but it's case cites!

Thanks! And I can't tell you how much I love it when I publically ask a question and the answer is found in the code...if I would have just taken the time to look for it. Makes me look so smart.

Some of us are geeks who read through pages of code for fun. I remember reading that section and thinking "When the hell would anyone ever need to use THIS!"