Austin DWI lawyer

A naming point first, because it decides whether this page is about your case. People search for an Austin DUI lawyer. Texas charges driving while intoxicated under Penal Code section 49.04, and for an adult driver that is the offense. The charge Texas literally calls DUI is a lesser one that applies only to drivers under 21 — the DUI vs DWI guide covers the difference.

The law is the same in every Texas county. What is specific to Austin is who runs the case. Travis County divides DWI prosecution between two offices by charge level, puts a lawyer in the room at the first appearance, and operates a separate court for people arrested again. Each of those changes what the first weeks look like, and the first of them is not how Dallas County does it.

Where an Austin DWI is heard

The Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center at 509 West 11th Street holds both sets of Travis County criminal courts. The level of the charge decides which one you stand in front of. A first DWI is a Class B misdemeanor and a second is Class A; both go to a criminal County Court at Law. A third offense is a felony, and so are the three related offenses in the Penal Code: DWI with a passenger younger than 15 is a state jail felony under section 49.045, intoxication assault a third-degree felony under section 49.07, intoxication manslaughter a second-degree felony under section 49.08. Those go to a criminal District Court.

Two similar-sounding things in the same building are worth separating. The Travis County Magistrate Court, on the second floor, is a district-level court that performs day-to-day judicial functions on behalf of the elected district judges and runs specialty dockets. Magistration is something else: the first appearance after an arrest, described in the next section.

Austin Municipal Court, out on Burleson Road, belongs to a different system. The city describes it as deciding the lowest-level criminal offenses in Texas, including traffic and city ordinance cases. A DWI is not one of them: it starts at Class B. If the officer also wrote a ticket at the same stop, that ticket is its own case with its own dates at 6800 Burleson Road, and settling it does nothing for the DWI.

Getting into the building

Travis County states that anyone refusing to take part in the screening process will be denied access to the building, and that confiscated items will not be returned. Metered parking is on every street around the courthouse and the meters take coins and credit or debit cards. The county also posts a list of items that may not be brought into the courthouse. Read it the night before rather than at the door: anything taken at screening stays taken.

The first fifteen days in Travis County

After booking comes magistration, the first appearance in front of a judicial officer. In Travis County it is run by the Criminal Associate Judges, and the county lists their duties as reading arrestees their rights, setting bond amounts and conditions, and considering personal bonds.

What is unusual is who else is there. Under the county's Counsel at First Appearance program, the associate judges hear defense counsel and prosecutors argue about bond amounts and release, and the county states that the aim of the initiative is to give people arrested on a charge subject to imprisonment representation at magistration. DWI is that kind of charge — even the lowest level carries jail. The lawyer at magistration is there for the matters decided at magistration, which mostly means bond. That is not the same thing as counsel for the case.

Bond conditions are where Texas adds something that surprises people. Code of Criminal Procedure article 17.441 has the magistrate order an ignition interlock as a condition of release for a second or subsequent DWI and for the listed first-offense charges, to be installed within thirty days of release. For a repeat arrest, then, the device can be on the car long before any plea — ignition interlock requirements sets Texas against the other five states.

Running beside all of this is the license case. A failed or refused breath or blood test produces a notice of suspension, and from that date you have 15 days to ask DPS in writing for an Administrative License Revocation hearing. Neither the court nor the lawyer at magistration sends that request; it is yours to send. Filed in time, it stays the suspension until an administrative law judge decides, as the Texas DWI laws page sets out. Not filed, the suspension begins on the fortieth day after notice.

Who prosecutes, and what the DWI Court is

The penalty ranges are statewide and are set out, level by level, on the Texas DWI laws page. Two things about Travis County are not statewide.

The prosecutor. The Travis County Attorney’s Office lists prosecuting misdemeanor crimes first among its duties, and the District Attorney’s Office describes itself as charged with prosecuting felony offenses within Travis County. A first or second DWI in Austin is therefore a County Attorney case and a felony DWI a District Attorney case. Dallas County does it the other way: there the District Attorney’s office handles the misdemeanor DWI as well. In Austin a case that changes level — a misdemeanor that turns out to carry two qualifying priors, say — changes offices along with courts.

The DWI Court. Travis County runs a separate program for repeat offenders inside its County Court system. The county describes it as a program of twelve months or longer that combines case management, supervision and substance abuse treatment, in some cases in place of incarceration. Participants come back to court for progress reviews weekly, every other week or monthly, depending on how far they have got. The published eligibility criteria are specific:

• 18 or older, and a resident of Travis County;
• a second or subsequent DWI arrest within two years of the first arrest or conviction;
• no victim involvement, no unresolved holds or warrants from other jurisdictions, and no unresolved pending cases;
• not previously assessed and referred to counseling for the same offense.

Criminal history is weighed case by case, and the county’s general guidelines rule out a violent history, stalking or protective-order violations, and history unrelated to alcohol or substance use. The way in runs through the prosecutor. The County Attorney reviews every application a defense attorney submits, eligible defendants are assessed by Adult Probation’s Substance Abuse Assessment Division, and a defendant who then enters a plea is set on the next DWI Court docket for sentencing.

One consequence is easy to miss when choosing counsel. On acceptance the county transfers the defendant’s representation to the DWI Court’s own defense attorney, so the lawyer who negotiates the way in is not the one who sees the program through.

DWI cases around Austin

A Travis County court hears what happened in Travis County. After an arrest near Austin the practical question is therefore not which suburb you were in but which county the stop was in, and the citation answers it.

The Travis County criminal courts hear what the county’s own pages describe: Class A and B misdemeanors in the County Courts at Law, felonies in the District Courts. Nothing about a suburb’s name decides it. The county printed on the citation does.

This page deliberately does not put individual suburbs into a county. The county pages that would have said where each line falls around Austin could not be read on the day this page was checked, and a guess about a county line is exactly the error that sends people to the wrong building. The county printed on the citation is authoritative either way.

The other two Texas cities on this site have their own version of the question. Harris County’s is about a handful of specific municipalities; Dallas County’s is about cities that straddle two or three counties.

Common questions about Austin DWI cases