The Texas DWI process

What happens after a DWI arrest in Texas?

Seven stages, and two of them run at once. The criminal case starts at the arrest and ends with a dismissal, a plea or a verdict. The license case starts at the specimen and can be finished 40 days after the notice without anyone setting foot in a courtroom. Each step below names the statute that sets it.

1. Arrest and bookingTransportation Code section 724.011(a) deems a person arrested for driving while intoxicated to have consented to give one or more specimens of breath or blood, and section 724.015 requires the officer to warn, orally and in writing, that a refusal costs the license for not less than 180 days.
2. The 15-day ALR clockSection 524.031 requires a request for an administrative hearing not later than the 15th day after the date the person receives notice of suspension. Section 524.021(a) makes the suspension take effect on the 40th day where no request is made.
3. Arraignment and bond conditionsCode of Criminal Procedure article 15.17 requires a magistrate to see the arrested person without unnecessary delay and not later than 48 hours after the arrest. Article 17.441 requires an ignition interlock on release where the charge is a subsequent DWI.
4. Pretrial, plea, or trialArticle 42A.102(b) allows deferred adjudication on a first offense under Penal Code section 49.04 unless the defendant held a commercial driver license or a commercial learner permit, or the alcohol concentration was 0.15 or more.
5. Sentencing and probation termsArticle 42A.053(a) lets the judge suspend the imposition of the sentence and place the defendant on community supervision. Article 42A.402(a) adds a drug or alcohol dependence evaluation, and article 42A.401(a) adds county jail on a repeat offense.
6. The class requirement and the 180-day clockArticle 42A.403(a) requires an education program regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, completed before the 181st day after community supervision is granted. Anyone punished under Penal Code section 49.09 takes the repeat offender program instead.
7. Certificate and closing out probationArticle 42A.406(b) puts the duty to report completion on the instructor, who notifies the Department of Public Safety. Transportation Code section 521.344(e) directs the director to revoke the license where the date passes with no completion recorded.

What happens at the stop and at booking?

The specimen decision happens here, and it is the one with a clock attached. Transportation Code § 724.011(a) deems a person arrested for driving while intoxicated to have consented to give one or more specimens of breath or blood for analysis.

Refusing is a choice the statute prices in advance. Section 724.015 requires the officer, before asking, to inform the person orally and in writing that a refusal may be admissible in a subsequent prosecution, and that the license will be automatically suspended for not less than 180 days whether or not the person is prosecuted as a result of the arrest.

Refusing does not always end the question. Section 724.012(b) directs a peace officer to require the taking of a specimen in the circumstances it lists where the person refuses the request to give one voluntarily. The charge itself is Penal Code § 49.04, and § 49.01(2) defines intoxicated twice over: an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more, or the loss of the normal use of mental or physical faculties. A case with no specimen can be tried on the second definition.

How long do you have to request an ALR hearing?

15 days. Transportation Code § 524.031 requires the department to receive the request not later than the 15th day after the date the person receives notice of suspension, and § 724.041(a) sets the same window after a refusal.

The 15-day clock: the Department of Public Safety prints it on its own Administrative License Revocation page: “You have 15 days from the date the notice is served to request a hearing to contest your driver license suspension and/or disqualification.” And: “If a hearing is not requested, the suspension goes into effect on the 40th day after you were served notice.”

The statute says the same thing in its own words. Section 524.021(a) makes a suspension under chapter 524 take effect on the 40th day after the date the person receives notice of suspension or is presumed to have received it, and subsection (b) says such a suspension may not be probated.

What the suspension costs depends on the specimen and on the record. Section 524.022(a) sets 90 days for an adult after a failed specimen, or one year where the driving record shows an alcohol-related or drug-related enforcement contact in the preceding 10 years. Subsection (b) sets 60 days for a minor, 120 days with one previous conviction, and 180 days with two or more. A refusal runs longer: § 724.035 sets 180 days, or two years with a prior contact. The full first-offense picture is in the guide to a first DWI in Texas.

What happens at arraignment, and what does bond require?

A magistrate comes first. Code of Criminal Procedure art. 15.17(a) requires the arrested person to be taken before a magistrate without unnecessary delay and not later than 48 hours after the arrest, informed of the accusation and of the right to counsel and to remain silent, and admitted to bail if allowed by law.

On a repeat charge, one condition of release is not the judge’s to choose. Article 17.441(a) requires a magistrate to order a defendant charged with a subsequent offense under § 49.04, 49.05, 49.06 or 49.061, or with an offense under § 49.045, 49.07 or 49.08, to have a device installed that uses a deep-lung breath analysis mechanism to make operating the vehicle impractical where ethyl alcohol is detected, and not to operate any vehicle without one.

Subsection (c) puts that device on the defendant’s own bill before the 30th day after release on bond. Subsection (d) lets the magistrate designate an agency to verify the installation and monitor the device, and requires the magistrate to set the monthly reimbursement fee in an amount not to exceed $10. Subsection (b) is the only way out, and it belongs to the magistrate rather than to the defendant.

How does a Texas DWI case get resolved?

Three ways: the State drops it, the defendant pleads, or the case is tried. The route that changes the paperwork most is deferred adjudication, and art. 42A.102(b) decides who can have it.

That subsection lets a judge grant deferred adjudication community supervision unless the defendant is charged with one of the offenses it lists. Paragraph (b)(1)(A) puts §§ 49.045, 49.05, 49.061, 49.065, 49.07 and 49.08 on the list outright. Paragraph (B) reaches § 49.04 where, at the time of the offense, the defendant held a commercial driver’s license or a commercial learner’s permit, or the alcohol concentration as § 49.01 defines it was 0.15 or more. And paragraph (C) adds any offense “for which punishment may be increased under Section 49.09, Penal Code”, which is every second or subsequent DWI.

Deferred adjudication is not a clean record for the next case. Penal Code § 49.09(g) counts a person placed on deferred adjudication under art. 42A.102 for driving or boating while intoxicated as having been convicted, which is what makes the following offense a second one. What that costs, offense level by offense level, is in the guide to Texas DWI penalties.

What does a DWI sentence include?

A fine, a term of confinement and a license suspension, or a probated version of all three. Article 42A.053(a) lets a judge suspend the imposition of the sentence and place the defendant on community supervision, or impose a fine and place them on supervision.

Two requirements are not the judge’s to skip on a chapter 49 supervision. Article 42A.402(a) requires an evaluation by a supervision officer or by a person, program or facility approved by the Department of State Health Services, for the purpose of prescribing and carrying out a course of conduct for the defendant’s drug or alcohol dependence condition. Article 42A.403(a) requires the education program, which the next section covers.

Probation on a repeat offense still carries county jail. Article 42A.401(a) requires not less than 72 hours of continuous confinement where the defendant was punished under § 49.09(a), not less than five days where § 49.09(h) also applies, and not less than 10 days where the defendant was punished under § 49.09(b). Paragraphs (4) and (5) set 30 days for intoxication assault and 120 days for intoxication manslaughter. A first offense punished under § 49.04 is on none of them.

An interlock may follow the conviction as well as the bond. Article 42A.408(b) lets the court require one on any conviction under §§ 49.04–49.08, and subsection (c) makes it mandatory where the analysis showed 0.15 or more, where the defendant was punished under § 49.09(a) or (b), or where the court finds a previous conviction under §§ 49.04–49.08.

When is the DWI class due?

Before the 181st day after the date community supervision is granted, under art. 42A.403(a). The program has to be one regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation under Chapter 171 of the Government Code, which is the 12-hour DWI Education class.

The deadline moves only on a written motion. Subsection (c) lets a judge waive the requirement or grant an extension for good cause, and an extension expires no later than the first anniversary of the beginning date of the supervision. Subsection (d) lists what good cause may take in, including school and work schedules, health, the distance to an in-person program, out-of-state residence or a lack of transport, and access to reliable internet service sufficient to complete a program offered online. Subsection (d-1) makes the waiver mandatory where the defendant completed education at a residential treatment facility under art. 42A.4045.

A repeat case takes a different program. Article 42A.404(a) requires a defendant punished under § 49.09 to complete an educational program for repeat offenders regulated under the same chapter, which is the 32-hour DWI Intervention class. Your order names one program or the other, and finishing the wrong one does not satisfy it.

How do you close out DWI probation?

The instructor reports the class, not you. Article 42A.406(b) requires the defendant’s instructor, on successful completion, to give notice to the Department of Public Safety for inclusion in the driving record and to the community supervision and corrections department.

The requirement reaches that record before the completion does. Article 42A.406(a) requires the court clerk to report the requirement, any waiver and any extension to the department, and to include the date supervision began. That is why the license turns on what the record shows rather than on the certificate in your hand: Transportation Code § 521.344(e) directs the director to revoke the license once the date for successful completion of the education program has passed according to department records, and subsection (f) does the same for the repeat offender program with the word suspend. Article 42A.406(d) then charges $100 to reinstate a license revoked over an educational program requirement imposed under art. 42A.403.

Finishing the class early does not end the supervision early. Article 42A.701 is the article that lets a judge reduce or terminate a period of community supervision, and subsection (g)(1) says it does not apply to a defendant convicted of an offense under §§ 49.04–49.08. Supervision that follows a DWI conviction runs the term the judge set; the class is what has a deadline on it.

The one thing this page cannot tell you is which program your own order names. Send us a photo of it, or have it in front of you when you call, and we will read the program name off it before you pay for anything.