How to Get Someone Out of Jail After a DWI Arrest in Texas: A Guide for Family and Friends

What You Need Before You Call Anyone

You are probably reading this in the middle of the night with very little information. Start here. Every call you are about to make, to the jail, to a bail bond company, to a lawyer, goes faster if you have these six things written down first.

• Full legal name, spelled the way it appears on their license, not a nickname.
• Date of birth. Jails look people up by name and date of birth together.
• Booking number or SO number, if you have it. If you do not, the name and date of birth are enough to find them.
• Which facility. City jails and county jails are different buildings with different rules, and someone arrested by a city police department may be transferred to the county jail before release.
• The charge. Whether it is a first DWI, a felony, or a DWI with a passenger under 15 changes both the bond and the conditions.
• Whether bond has been set, and at what amount. Often it has not been set yet when family first calls. That is normal.

If you are missing most of this, call the arresting agency’s non-emergency line and ask which facility the person was taken to. Then call that facility’s booking desk and ask whether bond has been set.

One thing worth knowing before you start dialing: you cannot rush the front of this process. Booking has to finish before anyone can be released, no matter how quickly you have the money ready.

How Long They Will Be Held

No statute sets a number. Texas law says what bail is for and what a magistrate must weigh, but it does not set a deadline for holding someone before bail is set or for releasing them after it is posted. What fills that gap is local practice: whether the county magistrates around the clock, how the jail is staffed overnight, and how readily personal bonds are granted.

Bond has to be set before it can be posted. In some counties bail is pre-set by schedule; in others a magistrate reviews the case, typically within 24 hours of arrest. That proceeding, where the charge is read, rights are explained, and bond and conditions are set, is called magistration, and it is covered in full on Magistration.

Every release runs the same five steps, and the clock is the sum of them: transport and booking, any station testing that has not already happened, magistration, posting the bail, and release processing with paperwork. Nothing in that sequence involves a decision about guilt. It is administrative from beginning to end, which is why the strength of the case does not speed it up, and refusing the breath test did not slow it down.

The delay concentrates in two places, and they are different problems. The first is waiting for a magistrate: bond cannot be posted before it exists, and in a county where magistration runs on a schedule rather than around the clock, a 2am arrest waits for the next session. Nobody is being punished. The step has not happened yet, and calling the jail does not move it. The second is raising the money once the number exists: finding a bond company, a co-signer, and signatures in the middle of the night. That second delay is the one you can do something about, which is why knowing who will post, and how, before the number exists is the difference between posting within the hour and posting the following afternoon.

Which county you are in decides most of the rest, because counties differ on whether magistration runs continuously, how the jail is staffed overnight and on weekends, and how readily personal bonds are granted.

One clarification, because mixing these up causes real distress. This wait is jail before the case: administrative custody between arrest and release on bond, and for most first-offense misdemeanor arrests it is measured in hours rather than days. Jail as a sentence is a different question that belongs to the end of a case that has not started yet, and it is answered in the Penalties guides.

Can a Lawyer Get Them Out Faster?

Sometimes, and it is worth one phone call to find out, even at night.

In a number of Texas counties, an attorney can file a writ of habeas corpus for someone in custody and post what is commonly called an attorney writ bond, which gets bail set and posted without waiting for the jail’s magistration schedule. Where the practice exists it is generally available on misdemeanor charges, which covers most first DWI arrests. Whether it exists, and on what terms, is county practice rather than state law, so the answer depends on where the person is being held, and a local DWI lawyer will know it off the top of their head.

Even where a writ bond is not available, a lawyer who gets involved before magistration can ask for a personal bond, put the ability-to-pay facts in front of the magistrate, and push back on conditions before they are set rather than moving to modify them afterward. The one thing no lawyer can do is skip booking. Nobody can.

Posting Bond: Cash, Surety, and Personal Bonds

Three ways to post it, and tonight the difference between them is speed and who has to sign.

Cash is fastest if the money is already liquid. You take the full amount to the jail or the clerk and nothing waits on a third party being awake. It is also the only one that comes back.

Surety is what most families use, because you hand a bond company a fraction rather than the whole number. Budget time for it: you need a company that answers at 2am, a co-signer they will accept, and signatures. That search is the delay, not the paperwork.

Personal bond costs nothing up front and is the one you have to ask for. If it is available it removes the fundraising step entirely, so ask before you start calling bond companies. It is also not automatically the light option, because it carries its own supervision.

One more thing worth settling before you choose: every argument that works on a bail amount is an argument about whether the person will come back, not about whether they are guilty. What each form commits you to is the next section. What the amounts run is on Bail in a Texas DWI Case, and how the number is set and challenged is on Bond.

What You Can Supply That Helps

Nobody at the jail will ask you for any of this. Have it ready anyway, because a lawyer arguing the amount will want it, and because some of it can be raised at the initial setting.

• Length of residency. How long they have lived in the county and in Texas.
• Employment. Where they work, how long they have been there, and whether missing work jeopardizes the job. That is a community-ties fact, and it is also relevant later to bond conditions.
• Family ties. Who lives nearby, whether there are children or dependents, and where they will be living if released.
• People willing to stand behind them. Courts weigh testimony from family members who say they will make sure bond conditions are followed.
• Prior record, honestly. Including any past failure to appear, because the court will find it regardless, and a lawyer who learns it from you first can address it rather than be surprised by it.
• Actual financial capacity. Ability to pay is a listed factor and proof may be taken on it, so a real number supported by real testimony is worth more than a general statement that it is unaffordable.
• Anything that makes detention unusually harmful. Medical conditions, caregiving responsibilities, a job that will not survive a week’s absence.

What You Are Signing Up For If You Post It

Be clear-eyed about this before you sign anything.

On a surety bond, the fee you pay the bond company is gone regardless of outcome. An acquittal does not get it back. If they ask for collateral or a co-signer, that person is exposed if the defendant does not appear. What the underlying amounts typically run for a DWI, and what makes them climb, is covered in Bail in a Texas DWI Case.

On a cash bond, your money is tied up for the length of the case, which in a contested DWI can be a long time.

On any bond, if the person fails to appear or violates conditions, the consequences reach you. A magistrate may revoke bond and order an arrest. A failure to appear also becomes part of the record weighed at every future bail decision in the case.

The practical implication is not to refuse to help. It is that whoever posts the bond should be someone with enough contact with the defendant to know that court dates and conditions are being met, and should say so out loud at the start.

Conditions That Come With Release

Release comes with orders attached, and two of them matter the night you walk out.

If a device was ordered, a clock started. Texas law requires an ignition interlock as a condition of bond for anyone charged with a subsequent DWI, and on a first charge of DWI with a child passenger, intoxication assault, or intoxication manslaughter. It applies on every bond type rather than only personal bonds, and the installation deadline runs from release rather than from the court date. There is one recognized way to be excused from it, and it has to be asked for early.

Do not drink. Whether or not abstinence was written into the conditions, treat it as ordered until the case is over.

Say both of those out loud to the person you are picking up, along with the third thing: every condition the judge set is an order, not a suggestion.

Everything else, what each condition means, what it costs, who can see the test results, what a violation actually costs, and how to get an unworkable one modified, is on Bond Conditions. Read it the same night if a device was ordered. What the monitoring devices actually are is on Alcohol Monitoring Devices.

If the Person Is Not a US Citizen, Read This First

This is one short section, and it is here because the decision it describes usually gets made at 2am by a family with no information.

If the person in custody is not a US citizen, posting bond has a dimension that most families do not know exists. Being booked into a county jail can bring someone to the attention of federal immigration authorities. Where that happens, a detainer may be placed, and the practical effect is that release from county custody does not mean going home. It can mean a transfer into immigration custody instead.

That is not a prediction about any particular case, and it is not a reason to panic. Whether it happens at all depends on the person’s immigration status, the charge, and the practice of the specific county and sheriff, which differs from place to place and changes over time. It is a reason to make one phone call before you post bond rather than after.

The full analysis, including how a DWI charge and a DWI conviction differ in immigration consequence, is on DWI and Immigration Status. If this applies to your family, read it before you post anything.

What to Do in the First Hour

You have the six facts from the top of this page. Here is the rest of the sequence.

1. Find out the bond amount, and whether a personal bond is a possibility. That one question can remove the fundraising step entirely.
2. Decide who is posting, and whether it is cash or surety.
3. Ask what conditions come with release, and write them down. If a device was ordered, there is a deadline attached.
4. Ask what the court date is and write it down.
5. Ask them to stop talking about the case, including on recorded jail phone lines.
6. Do not lose the paperwork they walk out with. The notice of suspension in that stack starts a 15-day deadline on the license, and it is the only clock in the first two weeks that cannot be reset.

After Release: The Two Clocks Start Now

Getting someone out is the end of tonight and the beginning of the case. Two deadlines are already running, and the shorter one is not the court date.

The license case. If the person refused testing or failed a breath test, an officer served a notice of suspension, and there are 15 days from that service to request the hearing that contests it. The day it was served counts as day one. A timely request is also what keeps them driving in the meantime. See The 15-Day Rule. If they gave blood instead, the timing works differently and runs from a mailed notice, covered on Your Blood Case and the 20-Day Notice.

The criminal case. It moves on the court’s calendar over months. The first setting is usually weeks away. The two tracks are independent, so winning or losing one does not decide the other, which is explained on Two Cases, Not One.

The practical order for the next few days, and the wider picture of what the coming weeks look like, is on After a DWI Arrest.