Which class does your court order mean?

How to match your Texas court order to the right class?

Five steps, and the first one settles most cases. Your order names a program, the table below turns that name into a class, and your court or supervising officer confirms it. Nothing here decides what your order requires. It tells you what the words printed on it are used to mean in Texas.

1. Read the program name on the orderYour order names a program, not a subject. Code of Criminal Procedure article 42A.403 calls it an educational program regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, and the words printed on the paperwork are what decide which program you owe.
2. Match the acronym to the programDWI-E is the 12-hour DWI Education class, DWI-I the 32-hour repeat offender program, DOEP the 15-hour Drug Offender Education Program, AEPM the 6-hour Alcohol Education Program for Minors, VIP a Victim Impact Panel, and BIPP the 36-hour Batterer Intervention and Prevention Program.
3. Confirm the program with the court or your officerOnly your court or supervising officer can say whether a given program satisfies your order. Ask before you pay, and ask about the hour count as well as the name, because providers publish different lengths for the same state program.
4. Enroll in the program the order namesArticle 42A.403 requires the education program to be completed before the 181st day after community supervision is granted, so the dates you can get matter as much as the price. A drug suspension runs on its own clock under Transportation Code section 521.374.
5. Make sure the completion reaches the right recordArticle 42A.406 puts the reporting duty on the instructor, who notifies the Department of Public Safety and the community supervision and corrections department. Transportation Code section 521.344 turns on what those records show rather than on the certificate in your hand.

What do the acronyms on a Texas court order mean?

DWI-E, DWI-I, DOEP and AEPM are the four sets of initials Texas orders use most, and each names one state-regulated program of a fixed length. The table gives the wording orders use, the hours, the statute behind the program where one exists, and what we charge.

Two things the table cannot fit in a cell. BIPP carries a $50 intake orientation charged on top of whichever plan you choose rather than instead of one, so the amount that leaves your account is $550 paid in full, or $770 on the weekly plan the class page also lists. And the hour count in the table is the schedule we publish; where your own order prints a different number, that number is the one to raise with your officer before you book anything.

The bottom two rows are the ones no statute settles. Code of Criminal Procedure art. 42A.301(a) leaves the conditions of community supervision to the judge of the court having jurisdiction of the case, after considering the results of a risk and needs assessment. Anger management and a victim impact panel arrive that way, which is why the wording on those orders varies more than the wording on a DWI order does.

Does your order mean the 12-hour class or the 32-hour class?

Count the intoxication offenses. A first one goes to the 12-hour class under art. 42A.403(a), which requires a TDLR-regulated education program completed before the 181st day after community supervision is granted. Anyone punished under Penal Code § 49.09 goes to the 32-hour program instead.

Article 42A.404(a) is the sentence that moves you: it requires the judge to order a defendant punished under § 49.09 into an educational program for repeat offenders as a condition of community supervision. Section 49.09(a) reaches that level on one prior conviction for operating a motor vehicle, an aircraft, a watercraft or an amusement ride while intoxicated, and § 49.09(b) on two. Neither article mentions the other program, and finishing one does not close out the other.

Both programs can be lifted, and neither comes off by asking the provider. Article 42A.404(b) lets the judge waive the repeat offender program only on a written motion showing good cause, and art. 42A.403(c) says the same for the 12-hour class. One waiver is not the judge’s to refuse: where the defendant completed equivalent education while a resident of a treatment facility under art. 42A.4045, art. 42A.403(d-1) requires the court to waive the requirement. Either way the finding is written into the judgment, so the paperwork will say so.

Where the count and the wording disagree, the wording wins until somebody with authority says otherwise. A case can be pleaded down, a prior can be treated differently than you expect, and what you owe is what the judgment says you owe. Read the program name, not your own arithmetic. What each offense level carries beyond the class is in the guide to Texas DWI penalties, and the first-offense version of it is in the guide to a first DWI in Texas.

Does a drug charge order DOEP or a DWI class?

DOEP, and it runs on a different clock from either DWI program. Transportation Code § 521.372 suspends a license automatically on a final conviction under the Controlled Substances Act and on the other drug offenses it lists, and the 15-hour program is what lifts it.

The difference that matters is what completing the class does. § 521.374(b) keeps a drug suspension running until the earlier of two dates: the day you successfully complete the TDLR-approved program, or the second anniversary of the day the suspension or prohibition was imposed. Skipping the class does not run the 90 days out. It leaves the suspension in place for up to two years.

The confusion is understandable, because Penal Code § 49.01(2) defines intoxicated to include a controlled substance or a drug, so a DWI case can involve drugs and still be a DWI. The test is which statute your suspension came from, not which substance was involved. A DWI conviction with a drug charge alongside it can produce both requirements at once, on two separate clocks, and the two classes are the 12-hour DWI Education class and the 15-hour Drug Offender Education Program.

Which class does a minor take?

The six-hour alcohol program, on an order that usually says neither DWI nor DUI. Alcoholic Beverage Code § 106.115(a-1) requires a court convicting a minor with no previous conviction to order the defendant to successfully complete an alcohol awareness program or a substance misuse education program.

Section 106.115(a)(1) describes that program as one regulated under Chapter 171 of the Government Code, which is the same chapter the DWI classes are licensed under. Four charges lead to the same place: minor in possession, minor in consumption, public intoxication, and DUI by a minor under § 106.041. The class is the 6-hour Alcohol Education Program for Minors, a parent or legal guardian enrolls the student, and the order will often call it an alcohol awareness program rather than AEPM.

A driver under 21 can still be charged as an adult, and then the class changes with the charge. Penal Code § 49.04 sets no age, so a minor who is intoxicated as § 49.01(2) defines it can be charged with DWI and ordered into the 12-hour class. Which offense was charged, and what each one costs, is worked through in the guide to DWI versus DUI in Texas.

Where does the certificate go when you finish?

On a DWI class, the instructor sends it and you do not. 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, along with the date supervision began. That is why the license turns on what the department shows rather than on the document in your hand: § 521.344(e) directs the director to revoke the license once the date for completing the education program has passed with no completion recorded, 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.

Not every class reports to DPS: the reporting duty in art. 42A.406 is written for the intoxication-offense programs. A drug suspension lifts on proof of completing the 15-hour program reaching the department under § 521.374(b). Anger management, a victim impact panel and BIPP involve no driving record at all: that certificate goes to the court or to your supervision officer, and the file it lands in is theirs. Ask which of the two your program is before you finish, not after.

One rule applies to all of them. A certificate is issued for a program that was completed, so hours missed are hours to make up rather than paperwork to sort out at the end. Where a deadline is genuinely out of reach, art. 42A.403(c) lets a judge waive the requirement or grant an extension on a written motion showing good cause, and an extension may run no later than the first anniversary of the date supervision began. That motion is a lawyer’s job, not a provider’s.

What if the order still is not clear?

Send us a photo of it. We read the program name off court orders every day, and we will tell you which class it points at, how long that class runs and what it costs, before any money changes hands. If it names a program we do not teach, we will say that too.

What we cannot do is decide for your court. Only the court or your supervising officer can say whether a given program satisfies your order, so confirm the program name with them before you enroll anywhere. That call is worth making even when the order looks obvious: the cost of getting it wrong is the whole price of a second class.

Call 877-635-4498 with the order in front of you, or text us a photo of it. Either way you get the program name read back to you before you pay.