We've been progressively having more problems obtaining State Jail penpacks over the past couple of years.

We've recently been told by someone at TDCJ that if the subject was sentenced to State Jail and their release date was PRIOR to October 2005, the pack is available through TDCJ Records in Huntsville. If the release date is AFTER October 2005, then you must track it down by contacting the State Jail facility that had custody of the subject. (Not a simple process)

Anyone have any knowledge on the subject? I've tried talking to TDCJ but I seem to receive different answers.

In the end we often now contact multiple State Jail facilities to locate the records, and the turnaround time varies greatly by facility and by who you talk to. At the same time, we are often requesting cert J&S copies and docket sheets from the original jurisdiction and crossing our fingers that there is a usable print in the record.

Any advice as to how to simplify the process is appreciated.

I've made an inquiry with TDCJ and will report back if I learn anything useful.

-Shannon

We have started getting CC from the county.

This took a while, due to some technical difficulty on my end, but here is the response I received from TDCJ in response to this thread:

"Pen packet requests for State Jail and prison sentenced offenders should be sent to TDCJ Classification and Records Headquarters in Huntsville. Requests may be sent by internet email (penpacket-AT-tdcj.state.tx.us), fax (936/437-6227) or regular mail (P.O. Box 99, Huntsville, Texas 77342). However, if the request is for a state jail offender, and the requestor knows which facility that state jail offender is assigned to, the request may be sent directly to the state jail, attention Unit Warden or Classification Chief. State jail addresses and phone numbers can be obtained from the unit directory on the TDCJ website (www.tdcj.state.tx.us).

"Every effort will be made to process the request within seven calendar days. If the pen packet is not received in this time period, or if the request is a "rush order", you may contact Rachel Williams, TDCJ Classification and Records, at 936/437-8696 or Rachel.williams-AT-tdcj.state.tx.us."

The other problem with the records from the State Jails is that they are not "pen packs"--instead we're getting a business records affidavit with copies of judgments, a fingerprint card and a photo attached. We can certainly file them in prior to trial--but I think ultimately that we have a hard time proving up a business records affidavit when the records were made at another place and another time from where your business records affiant works.

Any thought on asking that the State Jails truly produce a pen pack instead of what we've been getting?

Perhaps getting them directly from Huntsville would resolve that problem?

Thanks Shannon. We'll try this route again and I'll let you know how it turns out.

With regard to the rush aspect, we've found that TDCJ Records will now not RUSH you a penpack unless you have a UPS account - they will not rush using FedEx, even though they aren't paying for it. This has been an issue for us because we have FedEx and DHL, but not UPS. So we wait...

I recently talked to an investigator from Wilco DA that ran into the same problem.

This only started within the last year or so. However, I'll talk to Rachel and see if there's any flexibility there.