CCP Art. 20.11 discusses the procedure through which the grand jury foreman or the attorney representing the state may, upon written application, cause a subpoena to be issued to any county in the State for a desired witness. Article 20.11 goes on to say that the witness may be required appear and produce records and documents.

Is there a way to subpoena out-of-town documents only, and require the person to mail the documents instead of requiring them to show up personally and testify?

I feel like this is a simple question with a simple answer, but I'm just not finding it in the Code.

How do your offices handle these?

We have a form we use for out of county subpoena duces tecums to be returnable Instanter.
Drop me an email at Lisa.Tanner@oag.state.tx.us and I'll be happy to forward it back to you.

We will usually serve the GJ Subpoena and attach a letter from our office stating that delivery of the requested records and a business records affidavit will constitute compliance with the subpoena. Most are more than happy not to have to actually appear.

I don't think the statutes require that the documents be presented prior to the grand jury session. The statute contemplates that the witness will "appear" to provide the information, however, most entities would rather send the documents and not appear. We simply type a sentence on the subpoena stating that the subpoena can be complied with by mailing the records or providing them to the investigator. I have only had one witness ever insist on actually coming to the grand jury to turn over the records.

Our subpoenaes for documents state on their face that the subpoena maybe complied with by providing the documents to "name-of-investigator" at "office-of-investigator". This has never failed to satisfy, except when subpoenaed party moves to quash for some other reason.

Thanks for all of the replies. I appreciate the help.