A BILL to amend and reenact § 46.2-388 of the Code of Virginia and to amend the Code of Virginia by adding in Chapter 2 of Title 17.1 an article numbered 9, consisting of sections numbered 17.1-296, 17.1-297, and 17.1-298, relating to Court Date Reminder Program established; work group; report.
HB885 establishes a Court Date Reminder Program within the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia. The program is intended to send text message reminders to criminal defendants about scheduled court appearances in general district and circuit court cases, with the stated goals of reducing failures to appear and improving court efficiency. Defendants may opt out at any time, and each reminder must include the hearing date, time, location, and opt-out notice. The bill also directs courts and justice-system personnel to collect telephone numbers when practicable for use in the reminder program.
The bill further requires that telephone numbers gathered for the program be used only for court reminder purposes, be redacted from public online court records, and not be used for investigative, intelligence, or enforcement purposes. It also clarifies that a failure by the program to send a reminder, or a defendant’s failure to receive one, does not excuse the legal duty to appear in court or serve as a defense to a failure-to-appear prosecution. In addition, the bill amends the uniform summons form to include a telephone-number field for the reminder program and creates a stakeholder work group to study implementation, expansion, privacy, data security, and reporting, with a report due by December 1, 2026.
HB885 would add a new article to Title 17.1 creating a statewide court date reminder system and would amend § 46.2-388 to require a telephone-number field on summons forms for use by the program. It would affect criminal defendants in general district and circuit court, court clerks, law-enforcement officers, corrections personnel, and court administrators by establishing new collection, use, and privacy rules for contact information. The bill would also require the Supreme Court’s Executive Secretary to convene a work group and produce recommendations on possible future expansion to other case types and court-related notifications.
The available legislative history suggests generally favorable sentiment toward the concept, as reflected by the bill advancing out of committee and the Finance and Appropriations vote of 14-0 in favor of continuation to the next session. The bill’s structure, which emphasizes efficiency, reduced unnecessary custody, and improved court appearance rates, indicates broad institutional support for the underlying policy. No committee transcript is provided, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate to indicate opposition in the available materials.
The main points of potential contention are privacy, data security, and the scope of government use of defendants’ telephone numbers. The bill explicitly bars use of collected numbers for investigative or enforcement purposes and requires redaction from public online records, suggesting concern about misuse of personal information. Another possible area of debate is whether reminders should expand beyond criminal court appearances to traffic infractions, juvenile cases, fines and fees, or other court actions; the bill does not make those expansions directly, but it directs the work group to study them. The bill also preserves the existing legal obligation to appear, which may be important to prosecutors and courts concerned that reminders could be misunderstood as altering failure-to-appear liability.