What Happens If I Get Arrested For A DWI In Texas?
Asked in San Antonio, TX on May 8, 2025 Last answered on August 18, 20262 answers
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2024 - 2026 If you are arrested for a DWI in Texas, several things will quickly happen that may be disorienting and confusing. However, you must try to remain calm and request to speak to an attorney as soon as possible so that you can protect yourself.
Immediately Upon Your Arrest
First, you will be taken into custody by the police and placed either in jail or a hospital, depending on your current state. You will be read a statutory warning form called a DIC form, asking you to provide either a breath specimen by the officer on an Intoxalizer 9000 device or a blood sample drawn at the hospital. You can refuse to voluntarily provide these. However, if the officer has probable cause to suspect that you are intoxicated, they can request a warrant for a blood sample to be taken from you by the medical staff.
Once the police have obtained a breath specimen or a blood sample from you, you will be transferred to jail if you were not brought there first. You will be brought before a magistrate judge who will set a bond with a set of conditions for your release. After you post your bond, you are released from police custody.
Following Your Arrest
You do not automatically lose your driving privileges after you are arrested or even after your breath specimen or blood sample shows you were over the legal limit. You have 15 days to request an administrative license revocation (ALR) hearing before the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to preserve your license. This virtual hearing is conducted with a DPS attorney, an administrative hearing officer, and the police officer who performed your arrest, if they have been subpoenaed.
This hearing is conducted completely separate from your criminal case for your DWI, and it involves a lower standard of proof – a preponderance of the evidence – to result in the suspension of your driving privileges. You can be found not guilty of a DWI and still lose your license. Additionally, since this is an administrative hearing rather than a criminal one, you do not have the same rights as you would in your criminal case. Your attorney will handle your appearance and defend you, but because the standard of proof is lower in the ALR hearing, you are more likely to prevail in your criminal case than in your license revocation hearing.
Your criminal case will progress at your arraignment, where you will be read your charges and you can enter a plea. In some jurisdictions, this can take anywhere from 30 days to up to six months.
Ignition Interlock Devices
For many people, the possibility of having an ignition interlock device installed in their vehicle depends on their circumstances. Some magistrate judges will base their decision on if they think you are going through a stressful time in your life. If you are going through a tough divorce or a job loss, they may think it is reasonable to have the device installed in order to prevent you from repeating your DWI.
As a part-time magistrate judge myself, this is something that I have considered, and I may think this is necessary to protect this person from harming themself or others. It can be awkward for people, especially if they have a work vehicle or drive their kids to school, but it is entirely within the discretion of the magistrate.
Other Consequences Of A DWI
Beyond the initial ramifications of receiving a DWI on your record and losing your driving privileges, there are many other potential consequences that can follow your arrest and conviction. The moment you are fingerprinted and processed for your bond, your case will show up in criminal databases, although it will show as disposition pending. That means that you will have a criminal record that will follow you through your life beyond the revocation of your driving privileges.
Many professionals, particularly those with state-supervised licensing boards, can potentially lose their license to practice their profession after a DWI. Professionals such as doctors, nurses, truck drivers, real estate agents, teachers, and others with state licenses could face disciplinary actions by their state licensing boards if they have a DWI on their records.
DWIs can also impact your finances. In addition to the penalties, fees and legal expenses you may incur through your case, your arrest record will be visible to creditors who may consider it for loans. It can also be considered by landlords when you apply for housing. Even if you have your criminal record expunged, that may not be sufficient to purge your arrest records from the major credit unions and may require your attorney to fight for its removal.
Free Consultation The single most important thing to know if you've just been arrested for DWI in Texas is this: you have only 15 days from the date of arrest to request an Administrative License Revocation (ALR) hearing, or your driver's license gets automatically suspended with no chance to fight it. That deadline runs on its own clock, completely separate from your criminal case, and most people don't find out about it until it's already too late — so if this just happened to you or someone you love, that's the first call to make, today, not after the criminal case gets sorted out.
Here's the bigger picture: a DWI arrest actually kicks off two separate cases running side by side. The State pursues the criminal charge against you, while the Texas Department of Public Safety separately goes after your driver's license through that ALR process. You'll typically be booked into county jail and can usually bond out the same day or the next, often with conditions like alcohol restrictions or an ignition interlock requirement while the case is pending. That ALR hearing isn't just about saving your license, either — it's also an early opportunity to put the arresting officer under oath and find out exactly what they'll say happened, well before trial.
What you're actually facing depends heavily on your BAC and any prior history. A first DWI is a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by 3 to 180 days in jail and up to a $2,000 fine, but if your BAC comes back at .15 or higher, it bumps up to a Class A misdemeanor with up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. If there was a child passenger in the vehicle, that alone makes it a state jail felony — 180 days to 2 years, up to $10,000. If the intoxication caused serious injury to someone else, that's intoxication assault, a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 10 years; if it caused a death, that's intoxication manslaughter, 2 to 20 years. And one thing that surprises a lot of people: a Texas DWI conviction is permanent — it cannot be expunged or sealed later, which is part of why how the case is handled at the outset matters so much.
That's exactly where the actual defense work happens, and there's more room to fight these cases than most people realize. Was the traffic stop itself legally justified? Did the officer actually have probable cause to arrest, based on what the field sobriety tests and their own observations really showed? If blood was drawn, was the warrant affidavit that authorized it actually sound? Was the testing done and preserved reliably? And critically, can the State even prove you were intoxicated at the moment you were actually operating the vehicle, as opposed to some other time? Every one of those is a real point of attack, not just a formality. At our firm, three attorneys hold Board Certification in Criminal Law — a distinction fewer than 10% of Texas attorneys carry — and several of us, myself included, spent years as Tarrant County prosecutors before moving to defense, so we know how these cases get built by the State and where they tend to be weakest.
This is general information, not legal advice for your specific arrest, and DWI cases move fast in ways that can cost you rights if you wait.
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