Boating While Intoxicated in Texas

Texas Penal Code 49.06 makes it an offense to operate a watercraft while intoxicated, and intoxication means exactly what it means on the road. The punishment structure mirrors DWI at every level. The fact most people do not know is that a BWI conviction counts as a prior for DWI enhancement, and a prior DWI makes a current BWI a second offense, so the two are interchangeable under the enhancement statute. How the encounter starts is genuinely different. Game wardens may stop and board a vessel for a water safety inspection without any suspicion of wrongdoing, and a BWI investigation frequently develops out of that inspection.

Texas has more than 560,000 registered boats, an estimated 359,000 additional unregistered watercraft, and some of the most active boating lakes in the country. Lake Texoma, Lewisville Lake, Possum Kingdom, Ray Hubbard, Joe Pool: every weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day, all of them are patrolled by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens, county marine units, and in some cases the U.S. Coast Guard. BWI enforcement is active and systematic.

The enforcement pressure behind that is measurable. Texas recorded 178 reportable boating incidents in 2025, resulting in 50 fatalities and 77 serious injuries, and 84 percent of those who died were not wearing a life jacket. Alcohol is consistently identified as the leading known contributing factor in Texas boating deaths. Enforcement has followed. Texas Game Wardens made 83 BWI arrests in the first half of 2025, a 25 percent increase over the same period in 2024, with 62 of those in May alone around Memorial Day weekend. Over the 2026 Fourth of July weekend wardens filed 62 BWI charges, the highest number for that holiday since 2019.

How Do You Get Out of Jail After a BWI Arrest?

A first or second BWI is a misdemeanor, so release usually comes quickly, often on a personal recognizance or low cash bond commonly between $500 and $5,000. Conditions can include no alcohol, and an interlock if the reported BAC was high or there is a prior. Notice what that last one means in practice: an interlock on the car you drive, ordered because of something that happened on a boat.

The 15-day license deadline still applies

Even though a BWI happens on the water, it triggers the same Administrative License Revocation process as a road DWI. You have 15 days from the notice of suspension to request an ALR hearing, or your driver’s license is suspended automatically. The hearing also lets your lawyer question the arresting officer under oath early. Note that ALR affects your driver’s license, not your boating privileges, which run through a separate Texas Parks and Wildlife process.

That surprises most BWI defendants, who assume a boating offense affects only boating privileges. It is exactly backwards. See The 15-Day Rule.

The suspension rule is narrower than most sources say

There is a limit on the ALR consequence that almost no BWI page mentions. The refusal provision reaches a watercraft only where the vessel was powered by an engine with a manufacturer’s rating of 50 horsepower or above. That limit sits in Texas Transportation Code §724.042(2)(B), and Section 724.042(2)(B) makes it an issue DPS has to prove at the hearing, not a background detail. The failed test side works differently. Chapter 524 carries no horsepower qualifier: Section 524.011 names Section 49.06 by number, and Section 524.012(b) directs suspension for a qualifying concentration while operating a watercraft, with no reference to engine size. The only horsepower language in Chapter 524 sits in the Section 524.001(3)(B) definition of a prior enforcement contact, which affects how long a suspension runs rather than whether one attaches.

So, a refusal on a smaller vessel does not carry the same driver’s license consequence. The criminal charge under §49.06 still applies to a kayak or a canoe, because the offense definition says nothing about horsepower. The refusal suspension does not reach it. A test failure still can. Texas Parks and Wildlife data shows paddle craft account for roughly 6 percent of reported boating incidents but about 32 percent of the fatalities, so these are not rare cases.

Where the vessel does clear the threshold, DPS still has to say so on the paperwork. If the DIC documents fail to allege the horsepower component, DPS cannot meet that element of its case.

Implied consent itself is not limited the same way. It reaches a person arrested for an intoxication offense committed while operating a watercraft, so the request for a breath or blood specimen works as it does on the road, a refusal carries the same statutory weight, and an officer can seek a search warrant for blood after one. The 50-horsepower threshold governs the license suspension, not the specimen request.

What Should You Do Right Now?

BWI evidence is built in unusual conditions, and the details fade fast. In order:

• Request your ALR hearing within 15 days of notice of suspension. It protects your driver’s license and creates an early, sworn look at the officer.
• Note which agency made the arrest. A Parks and Wildlife game warden, a county marine unit, and the Coast Guard each follow different protocols, and that matters to the defense.
• Write down the on-water conditions. Hours on the boat, sun and heat, wave and wake action, and what you ate and drank. These explain balance and eye-movement findings that are not about alcohol.
• Note the engine. The manufacturer’s horsepower rating on the vessel decides whether the license suspension provisions reach you at all.
• Stop talking about the arrest. Beyond identifying yourself, say nothing to officers or on social media.

Call a lawyer immediately. Early work on the stop and the testing shapes everything after.

If You Are Stopped on the Water

Most of what applies at a roadside DWI stop applies here, with one difference that matters at the moment it happens.

• Cooperate with the approach and the safety inspection. That authority is real, it does not depend on suspicion, and resisting it only creates additional exposure.
• Provide your operator identification and vessel documentation when asked. These are part of what the inspection is for and they are required.
• Say nothing beyond that. You do not have to answer questions about where you have been, what you have had to drink, or how long you have been on the water. The safety inspection does not entitle anyone to that.
• You can decline the sobriety tests. There is no license suspension consequence for declining to perform the marine battery, exactly as there is none for declining roadside tests. Declining is not an admission and it is not a crime.
• Call a defense lawyer the same day. The 15-day ALR clock starts once notice of suspension is served.

What Is Boating While Intoxicated in Texas?

Under Penal Code §49.06, you commit BWI by operating a watercraft while intoxicated, the same intoxication standard used for a road DWI: a BAC of 0.08 or higher, or the loss of normal mental or physical faculties.

What counts as intoxicated

Texas defines intoxication identically for BWI and DWI: the person does not have normal use of mental or physical faculties due to the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, a drug, a dangerous drug, or a combination of these, or has a BAC of 0.08% or higher. A person can be charged with BWI on impairment alone, with no BAC reading at all, if the officer’s observations support the intoxication determination.

What counts as a watercraft

Broader than most people assume. The statute reaches motorboats, sailboats, personal watercraft, kayaks, canoes, rowboats, and any other vessel used or capable of being used for transportation on water. Non-motorized vessels are included. A kayak is a watercraft.

There is no public place element

This is where BWI quietly departs from DWI. Penal Code §49.04 requires that a motor vehicle be operated in a public place. Section 49.06 carries no such requirement. It reads, in full, that a person commits an offense if the person is intoxicated while operating a watercraft. Texas lakes, rivers, bays, and coastal waters are plainly covered, but so are private lakes and waterways on private property. A private lake is not a safe harbor. Which agency has enforcement authority on a given body of water is a separate question from whether the offense applies at all.

What is legal on the water, and this is where boating genuinely differs from driving

Unlike motorists, boat operators can lawfully consume alcoholic beverages while underway as long as they do not become intoxicated, and they can carry open containers aboard. There is no boating equivalent of the open container offense.

Alcohol being present on a vessel is not itself evidence of a crime. It may show consumption, not intoxication. That makes the intoxication determination the whole case rather than one element among several.

Who makes BWI arrests

Enforcement is led by Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens, who have jurisdiction across the state on the water. County sheriff marine units, local police on their lakes, and DPS officers also make BWI arrests, and on navigable federal waterways the U.S. Coast Guard has concurrent jurisdiction. Which agency made the arrest decides which protocols governed the investigation and who can be cross-examined.

• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Game wardens have law enforcement authority across the state on Texas waters and are the primary BWI enforcement agency on most inland lakes and rivers. TPWD conducts Operation Dry Water and operates sobriety checkpoints on major boating holidays.
• County sheriff’s marine units. Many counties with significant lake frontage, including Travis, Montgomery, Denton, Henderson, and Palo Pinto, maintain dedicated marine patrol units.
• U.S. Coast Guard. On navigable federal waterways the Coast Guard has concurrent authority, and a Coast Guard stop can implicate federal law under 46 U.S.C. §2302, though most cases are referred to state authorities for prosecution.
• Municipal police. Waterfront cities, particularly on the Highland Lakes, Lake Texoma, and the coastal bays, may run their own marine patrol units.

How a BWI Stop Starts: The Water Safety Check

On land, the lawfulness of the stop is often the first and best issue in a DWI case. On the water it usually is not available, because the stop needed no justification to begin with. Understanding why is the beginning of a BWI defense.

Safety rules for recreational boating on Texas public waters live in Chapter 31 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code, enforced by marine safety enforcement officers who patrol recreational waterways and marinas. Much like police on land, a marine officer can conduct an investigatory detention of a boater when there is reasonable suspicion of a boating safety violation or another crime.

But a marine officer can also conduct a random safety inspection without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Texas Parks and Wildlife Code §31.124 authorizes a certified marine officer to stop and board any vessel to ensure compliance with registration and safety requirements. There is no roadside equivalent. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the statute against a Fourth Amendment challenge in Schenekl v. State, 30 S.W.3d 412 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000), reasoning that random checks are the only realistic way to enforce water safety rules because checkpoints are impractical on open water.

The inspection has a defined scope, and that scope is a defense issue. An officer conducting a water safety check is authorized to check the vessel’s certificate of number, its identification number and validation decal, the manufacturer’s hull identification number, lights, sound-producing devices, life preserving devices, fire extinguishers, flame arresters, ventilators, exhaust muffling, and, where persons are being towed, a rearview mirror. That is the list. An inspection that ranged beyond registration and safety equipment before anything suggested intoxication is worth scrutinizing.

How a safety check becomes a BWI investigation. Because open containers are lawful aboard, the thing an officer sees first is usually lawful too. When a marine officer stops a boater for a safety inspection and sees open or empty containers or smells alcohol, the inspection can develop quickly into a BWI investigation. The defense question is not whether the officer could approach, because the statute says yes. It is whether what the officer actually observed justified escalating from a regulatory inspection into a criminal investigation, and whether the report distinguishes evidence of drinking from evidence of impairment.

The officer has to be certified. A peace officer or game warden must be certified as a marine safety enforcement officer by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in order to enforce any provision of Chapter 31. That requirement sits in Texas Parks and Wildlife Code §31.121(a-1). It is a statutory precondition, not a formality, and it is not something to assume was satisfied. A Public Information Act request will establish whether the officer in a given case held the certification, and a request to the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators will produce the officer’s final exam from the seated battery training course.

What Evidence Do Prosecutors Need to Convict You?

The State must prove you operated a watercraft while intoxicated. The evidence looks like a DWI but is gathered in conditions that undercut it.

The stop and the officer’s observations, which on the water raise their own questions about authority and scope, covered above.

The chemical test. Breath or blood, with the same vulnerabilities as any DWI: calibration, the observation period, the blood draw and storage, and the chain of custody.

Field sobriety tests. This is where BWI departs from DWI most sharply, and it takes several sections to explain properly.

The seated battery is not the roadside battery

Marine safety officers use a series of seated sobriety tests to decide whether they have probable cause to arrest. These are not the NHTSA standardized field sobriety tests. The seated battery is the creation of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators built the training course that teaches marine officers to administer and score it.

An officer trained on the NHTSA roadside battery is not thereby qualified on the marine battery, and the two are routinely conflated in reports and in testimony. In practice you can see both batteries in a single case: a seated battery administered afloat, then the roadside battery administered dockside once the boat is in. Each carries its own set of problems.

What the seated battery consists of, and what supports it

The marine battery is four tests: horizontal gaze nystagmus, finger to nose, palm pat, and hand coordination. Only the first carries a recognized validation pedigree. The other three were looked at in the original roadside validation research and were not adopted into the standardized battery, because they showed no demonstrated value in predicting intoxication. They reappear in the marine setting anyway.

The 1990 study used 97 military men between 21 and 40, mean age 27. No women took part. Subjects were dosed with 190 proof alcohol mixed with fruit juice, and breath testing was done with a portable device whose reading was then treated as if it were the actual BAC. The legal limit at the time was 0.10. Data from the first three days were thrown out as erratic. Whatever the study showed about officers’ ability to estimate BAC, it validated nothing about the alphabet recital, the hand pat, finger to nose, or the finger count.

The 2010 follow-up, run on the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, trained officers on the four seated tests over four days and again used a portable breath device rather than an evidentiary instrument.

The sea legs phenomenon

Extended time on a moving watercraft produces physiological effects in sober people that mimic the signs of alcohol intoxication. Wave motion repeatedly perturbs the vestibular system, the inner ear mechanism responsible for balance. After hours on the water, a sober person stepping onto solid ground may show balance impairment, nystagmus-like eye movements, and unsteady gait that would score as intoxication indicators on a standard field sobriety evaluation. This is a documented physiological response, not intoxication, and it is one of the most important defense arguments in BWI cases.

It is specifically relevant to the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test and to the Walk-and-Turn and One-Leg Stand when those are administered immediately after a subject disembarks. An officer who runs these dockside within minutes of a subject leaving the water is evaluating a physiological state that partly reflects vestibular adaptation, not solely alcohol impairment.

It is worth being specific about what this looks like on paper, because these are the observations officers record as intoxication indicators. Exposure to sun and wind causes reddened skin and irritated, bloodshot, or watery eyes. A boat that bobs for hours leaves a person with wobbly legs and balance disturbances on stepping ashore. Read the arrest report for a summer afternoon on a Texas lake and every one of those entries also describes a sober person who has been outside all day.

The fifteen minute wait, and whether it happened

The training material does not deny the sea legs problem. It describes it, and it passes along the Coast Guard’s recommendation that a subject be given a waiting period onshore of at least 15 minutes before the standing tests are administered. The same manual then concedes that more research is needed to evaluate and quantify what sea legs do to a person’s equilibrium.

That matters, because it turns a physiological argument into a documentary one. Whether the officer waited is not a question of competing expert opinion. It is on the video and it is in the timestamps.

The NHTSA validation gap

The Standardized Field Sobriety Tests were developed and validated in studies of subjects who had been driving automobiles on land. NHTSA has published validation studies establishing the correlation between SFST performance and BAC for the roadside DWI context. Those studies were conducted on land, with subjects who had been in vehicles, not on watercraft.

No equivalent NHTSA validation study exists for the waterborne context. The correlation between SFST performance and BAC in a subject who has spent several hours on a moving boat has not been established through published, peer-reviewed research of the kind that underlies the DWI validation literature. This is not a technicality. It is a genuine methodological gap that the defense should raise in every BWI case where SFSTs were administered after time on the water.

Sun, heat and fatigue effects

Extended time on the water in Texas summer conditions produces dehydration, sun exposure, and heat fatigue, all of which independently affect coordination, balance, and cognitive function. These effects can be present in a person who consumed no alcohol at all, and they interact with any alcohol consumed to produce apparent impairment greater than the BAC alone would suggest. For the defense they provide alternative explanations for the behavioral observations the officer recorded. For the prosecution they complicate any attempt to attribute observed impairment solely to alcohol.

Blood and breath testing on the water

The same GC-FID methodology, chain of custody requirements, and Intoxilyzer 9000 limitations that apply in DWI cases apply here. But blood draws in BWI cases may occur in more variable circumstances than DWI draws, at a marina, on a dock, in a law enforcement vessel, or at a medical facility, and the chain of custody documentation should be scrutinized accordingly. Retrograde extrapolation challenges, in vitro fermentation arguments, and partition ratio variability apply equally to BWI blood evidence.

What Are the Penalties for a BWI in Texas?

The penalties mirror DWI exactly: same BAC threshold, same misdemeanor and felony structure, same enhancement rules.

• First BWI: Class B misdemeanor, a minimum term of confinement of 72 hours and up to 180 days in jail, fine up to $2,000. Deferred adjudication is available on a Section 49.06 charge, but Article 42A.102 bars it in three situations: where the person held a commercial driver’s license or commercial learner’s permit at the time, where the alcohol concentration was 0.15 or more, and where punishment may be increased under Section 49.09, meaning a prior intoxication conviction. So the 0.15 number does matter in a BWI case. It does not raise the offense level, but it takes deferred off the table. Boating while intoxicated with a child passenger is excluded outright. Sealing is a separate question, and the automatic route does not apply: Sections 411.072 and 411.0725 both exclude Section 49.06, so a BWI deferred is sealed, if at all, by petition under Section 411.0726, which requires a clean prior record apart from fine-only traffic offenses and a waiting period.
• A high BAC does not raise the offense level. Unlike a road DWI, there is no 0.15 Class A enhancement for BWI. Penal Code §49.04(d) reaches only §49.04, so a first BWI stays a Class B misdemeanor no matter how high the reading. A high number still matters to bond conditions, to what a prosecutor will offer, and to whether an interlock is ordered.
• Second BWI: Class A misdemeanor, a 30-day minimum term of confinement and up to 1 year, fine up to $4,000. If the sentence is probated, a 72-hour minimum jail term applies as a condition of probation, rising to 5 days where the second offense came within five years of the first.
• Third or subsequent BWI: third-degree felony, 2 to 10 years and a fine up to $10,000, with a 10-day minimum jail term as a condition of probation.
• BWI with a child passenger under 15 (§49.061): state jail felony, 180 days to 2 years and up to $10,000, regardless of BAC. Effective September 1, 2023. It applies regardless of whether this is a first BWI, so an outing that would otherwise have been a Class B misdemeanor becomes a felony because a child was aboard.
• BWI causing serious injury is intoxication assault under §49.07, a third-degree felony; causing a death is intoxication manslaughter under §49.08, a second-degree felony, 2 to 20 years, with Bentley’s Law support obligations.

A BWI counts as a DWI prior and a DWI counts as a BWI prior

Texas Penal Code §49.09 treats DWI and BWI convictions interchangeably for enhancement purposes. A prior DWI makes a current BWI charge a second offense. A prior BWI makes a current DWI charge a second offense. Texas has no lookback period, so a conviction from twenty years ago still counts.

Remember that the BWI you resolve cheaply this summer is a prior sitting on your record permanently, and if you are arrested for DWI in a car five years from now, that Class B on the lake made the car case a Class A misdemeanor with a mandatory jail condition. Likewise, the DWI you picked up in college makes this BWI a second offense today, with everything that carries.

The enhancement ladder does not care whether the vessel had wheels. How priors are counted and challenged is on How Prior DWIs Count, and the full punishment structure is on Texas DWI Penalties.

Where and When BWI Enforcement Happens

Enforcement is seasonal, concentrated, and organized. It clusters around three holiday weekends every year: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day.

The most significant coordinated program is Operation Dry Water, a nationally coordinated campaign aimed specifically at impaired boating over the Fourth of July holiday, conducted by Texas Game Wardens with federal and local agencies. During Operation Dry Water, wardens contact tens of thousands of vessels over a single weekend, issue hundreds of citations, and make dozens of BWI arrests across the state.

But enforcement is not limited to announced programs. Texas Game Wardens patrol year-round, and the increased focus on boating safety after the 2025 fatality spike has produced a more consistent presence on high-traffic lakes throughout the season.

North Texas lakes

• Lake Lavon, Collin County. A Corps of Engineers reservoir roughly 20 miles northeast of Dallas, drawing boaters from the Dallas, Plano, and McKinney corridors. Enforcement is primarily by Texas Game Wardens with Collin County resources in support, prosecuted by the Collin County District Attorney’s Office and heard at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney. Our Allen office is closest.
• Lake Ray Hubbard, Dallas / Rockwall / Collin / Kaufman Counties. One of the largest urban lakes in Texas, directly accessible from the Dallas metro and straddling four county lines. Enforcement is shared among multiple county agencies and Game Wardens, and the county in which the offense occurs determines which district attorney prosecutes and which courthouse hears the case. Our Rockwall office serves these cases.
• Lewisville Lake, Denton County. One of the most heavily used recreational lakes in DFW, drawing boaters from Dallas, Collin, and Denton counties. Enforcement by Denton County and Texas Game Wardens, prosecuted by the Denton County District Attorney’s Office at the Denton County Courthouse, 1450 E. McKinney Street, Denton, TX 76209. Our Denton office handles these.
• Grapevine Lake, Tarrant and Denton Counties. A Corps of Engineers reservoir northwest of DFW Airport drawing traffic from Fort Worth and Southlake. Game Warden enforcement is primary; Tarrant County cases are prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. Our Fort Worth office serves Tarrant County defendants.
• Joe Pool Lake, Dallas / Tarrant / Ellis Counties. Southwest of the Dallas metro and split across three counties, which makes the county line question a live one on this lake in particular. Our Dallas office is closest.
• Lake Texoma, Grayson County, Texas and Marshall County, Oklahoma. The largest lake on the Texas-Oklahoma border and one of the ten largest in the United States, on a federal reservoir crossing state lines. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, Texas Game Wardens, and Oklahoma wildlife officers all have jurisdiction depending on location and circumstance. A BWI arrest on Texoma may be a Texas state charge, but depending on where the arrest happens it can be charged in Oklahoma instead, which is a different statute, a different court, and a different lawyer.
• Lake Tawakoni, Hunt / Rains / Van Zandt Counties. East of Dallas, drawing boaters from the DFW metro. Game Warden enforcement is primary, prosecuted by the district attorney for the county where the arrest occurred.
• Possum Kingdom Lake, Palo Pinto County. West of Fort Worth, known for heavy holiday traffic and elevated enforcement on summer weekends. Prosecuted by the Palo Pinto County District Attorney’s Office.

Central Texas lakes

• Lake Waco, McLennan County. The primary lake in our Waco service area. Enforcement by McLennan County and Texas Game Wardens, prosecuted by the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office.
• Lake Belton and Lake Stillhouse Hollow, Bell County. Two Central Texas lakes with heavy summer traffic south of Waco, drawing boaters from the Killeen, Temple, and Waco corridor. Lake Belton is a Corps of Engineers reservoir. Game Warden enforcement is primary on both.

What game wardens look for on the water

Wardens conducting BWI enforcement are trained to identify indicators of impairment visible from another vessel or from shore:

• Erratic or inconsistent vessel operation, including wide turns, inconsistent speed, and weaving between other boats
• Unsafe speeds near other vessels, docks, swim areas, or marked no-wake zones
• Visible consumption of alcohol on board
• Passengers not wearing required personal flotation devices
• Navigation light violations after dark
• Equipment violations that give the warden a reason to approach for a safety check

An equipment problem is all it takes, and as covered above, the warden does not even need that much. Once alongside, the warden may detect what he reads as indicators of intoxication and shift from a safety check to a criminal investigation. Whether that shift was justified by what the warden actually observed is part of every BWI defense analysis.

Can You Fight a BWI?

Yes, and BWI cases often have more openings than a road DWI because the evidence was gathered in conditions that work against the State. Realistic outcomes include dismissal when the stop exceeded its lawful scope or the science fails, reduction, and acquittal at trial. The marine setting itself, where field tests were never validated, is a recurring defense.

No lawyer can promise a result, and you should be wary of one who does. But a balance or eye-movement finding taken right off a boat, and a breath or blood number, are both things to be tested, not a verdict.

How Is a BWI Different From a DWI?

The penalties are the same, but the case is built differently. Officers do not pull a boat over the way they stop a car; they may approach for a water-safety inspection that the law allows without reasonable suspicion, so the initial contact is often lawful even without the articulable facts a traffic stop needs. The sobriety tests are a different battery entirely, seated rather than standing, from a different authority, with different training and much thinner validation. The field tests that do carry over, validated only on dry land, lose much of their meaning after hours on the water. And the ALR suspension reaches your driver’s license, not your boating privileges, and only where the engine was rated at 50 horsepower or above.

That different investigation is exactly where a BWI defense lives. See our first-offense DWI page for how the road charge compares, and every Texas DWI charge for where BWI sits on the ladder.

How We Defend BWI Cases

We expose the marine field tests

The standard tests were never validated for a moving deck or a dock right after a day on the water, where normal vestibular disruption mimics impairment. And the seated battery the warden actually used is a separate instrument with its own thin literature, which we take apart on its own terms rather than treating it as a roadside test given while sitting down.

We test the scope of the stop

A water-safety inspection is one thing; a detention to investigate intoxication is another and needs reasonable suspicion. Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.23, evidence from a detention that exceeded its lawful scope is suppressible. The inspection statute has a defined eleven-item scope, which gives that argument a concrete boundary to work from.

We analyze any chemical testing

Managing Partner Deandra Grant holds a Master’s Degree in Pharmaceutical Science and the ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist designation, and Partner Douglas Huff holds the same designation. BWI blood is analyzed like DWI blood, and we review the preservative, fermentation risk, chain of custody, and method. The rising BAC defense applies on the water just as it does on the road.

We pin down the agency protocols

A game warden, a county marine deputy, and a Coast Guard officer follow different procedures and training. We match the officer’s actual certification and protocol against what the case requires. Marine safety enforcement officer certification is a statutory precondition under §31.121(a-1), and whether it was held is a documentary question, answered by a Public Information Act request rather than by assumption.

Do You Really Need a Lawyer for a BWI?

A BWI is not a ticket. It carries the same jail exposure, fine, and license suspension as a road DWI, it counts as a prior for future cases, and on a third offense or with a child aboard it becomes a felony. A quick plea locks all of that in based on evidence gathered in conditions that often do not hold up.

The value of counsel here is the ability to attack the marine field tests, the scope of the stop, and the blood science together. A BWI is a forensic case with a setting the State would rather you not examine.

How Long Does a BWI Case Take?

Most BWI cases run roughly 6 to 18 months from arrest to resolution, with contested blood cases longer. The case moves through arrest and bond, the ALR hearing within weeks, then discovery, the agency’s records, the blood analysis, and any suppression motions before a plea, dismissal, or trial.

Slower is often better. Pulling the officer’s certification record, the training file for the seated battery, and the lab packet takes time, and that work is what produces dismissals and reductions. We keep you updated at each step.

How Much Does a BWI Defense Cost?

The fee depends on the county and the lake, whether the case involves blood that needs independent review, the level of the charge, and whether it resolves before trial. We quote a flat fee after a free case review, so you know the investment up front.

Weigh it against what a BWI conviction costs: jail exposure, the fine, a license suspension, higher insurance, and a prior that can enhance any future DWI or BWI.

Where BWI Cases Are Heard Across Texas

A misdemeanor BWI is heard in the county courts at law of the county where the lake or river sits, and many North Texas reservoirs straddle county lines, which can affect where a case lands. Cases on Dallas-area waters often run through the Frank Crowley Courts Building, Tarrant-area waters through the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, and lakes in Collin, Denton, Rockwall, and McLennan Counties through their county courts. Felony BWI cases are heard in the district courts.

Lake Ray Hubbard touches four counties, Texoma touches two states, and Grapevine, Tawakoni, and Joe Pool each straddle a line. Which county the boat was actually in decides the prosecutor’s office, the courthouse, and the local practice on how these cases resolve, which is why establishing it is worth doing early.

We appear in these courthouses every week. See DWI enforcement across North Texas for how the counties differ, and BWI enforcement on North and Central Texas lakes for the lake-by-lake picture.

What Are the Long-Term Effects of a BWI?

Your record. A BWI conviction is a permanent criminal record, a misdemeanor on the first two offenses and a felony on a third, and a conviction is not eligible for expunction.

Future charges. A BWI counts as a prior for both DWI and BWI enhancement, so it raises the stakes on any later intoxication case on the water or the road, with no lookback period limiting how old it can be.

License and insurance. The ALR suspension affects your driver’s license, and a conviction commonly raises insurance costs for years.

Professional licensing. As with a DWI, licensed professionals can face separate board consequences from a BWI conviction, independent of the criminal case.

Talk to a Lawyer Who Knows the Water and the Science

A BWI is a forensic case built in conditions that work against the State: the marine field tests, the scope of the stop, and the blood. Deandra Grant Law challenges each one, and our founder literally wrote the BWI chapter in The Texas DWI Manual. We defend BWI cases arising from Lake Lavon, Lake Ray Hubbard, Lewisville Lake, Grapevine Lake, Joe Pool, Lake Texoma, Lake Tawakoni, Possum Kingdom, Lake Waco, Lake Belton, and Lake Stillhouse Hollow. We have offices in Dallas, Fort Worth, Allen, Denton, Rockwall, and Waco, with more than 30 years in North and Central Texas courts.

Call (214) 949-4295 for a free, confidential case review. Intake answers 24/7. No cost, no obligation.