Your Child Was Arrested for DWI in Texas

The First 24 Hours: Getting Them Out

You are probably reading this in the middle of the night, so here is the short version first: your job tonight is release, and your job tomorrow is the license deadline. Everything else can wait a few days without costing anything.

Release usually runs through magistration, where a magistrate sets bond, and then through posting that bond. You can pay it. A parent posting bond for an adult child is ordinary and creates no problem for the case. The mechanics, including what a bondsman does and what conditions can attach, are on Getting Someone Out of Jail.

One thing worth knowing before you panic about the jail part: if your child was charged with the lower-level under-21 alcohol offense rather than DWI, an officer is not required to take them into custody at all and may issue a citation instead. Some parents get a phone call about a court date rather than a booking. That is a meaningfully different situation, and the next section explains which one you are in.

Two practical notes for tonight. Jail phone calls are recorded, and that includes yours, so this is not the conversation for a detailed account of the evening. And if your child has already been released, write down what they remember now, tonight, while it is fresh: where they were coming from, how long they stood outside, what the officer asked, what they had eaten. Those details decay within days and nobody else is going to record them.

The 15-Day Deadline Applies to Them Too

This is the one that gets missed, because the license case is invisible and nobody at the jail explains it.

A DWI arrest starts two separate cases: the criminal case, and an administrative case against the driver’s license. The second one has a 15-day deadline to request a hearing, and if that request is not made in time, the suspension takes effect on its own. There is no hardship exception and no appeal from missing it.

For a parent, three things matter about this deadline. It runs on your child’s arrest date, not on when you found out. It is easy to miss because the paperwork is a single sheet handed over during release, and an embarrassed 20-year-old may not have registered what it was. And it is the one deadline in this entire process that cannot be repaired afterward.

So ask, tonight or tomorrow: what paperwork did you get, and where is it now. Then read The 15-Day Rule, which explains what the request does and how it is made.

If the case involved a blood draw rather than a breath test, the timing works differently and the window may not have started yet. That does not mean relax; it means confirm which situation applies rather than assuming either one.

Under 21: Two Different Charges

Parents often use “DWI” and “DUI” interchangeably. In Texas they are two different offenses with very different consequences, and knowing which one your child faces changes almost everything about how worried to be.

DUI by a minor is the zero tolerance offense, Alcoholic Beverage Code §106.041. A person under 21 commits it by operating a motor vehicle in a public place, or a watercraft, with any detectable amount of alcohol in their system. There is no threshold to argue about. A first offense is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine, and the court must also order an alcohol awareness program and 20 to 40 hours of community service. In Texas, “minor” for this purpose means anyone under 21, which surprises parents of 19- and 20-year-olds.

It also carries a license suspension. This is the part that gets missed, because the offense is fine-only and sounds trivial next to a DWI. A conviction under §106.041 triggers a suspension through §106.115, separate from and on top of whatever is happening in the ALR case. If you are tracking the 15-day deadline, know that the license is exposed from two directions at once.

DWI under 21 is the same offense adults are charged with. A person 17 or older driving with a BAC of 0.08 or higher, or who is otherwise intoxicated, can be charged with DWI and faces the same penalties an adult would, which are considerably harsher than the DUI penalties, plus a license suspension on conviction.

Two details that matter more than they look:

• DUI is not a lesser included offense of DWI. This is not an inference from the code structure, it is written into the statute. §106.041(g) provides that an offense under that section “is not a lesser included offense under Section 49.04, 49.045, 49.06, or 49.061, Penal Code.” A DWI charge does not come with a DUI fallback the way people assume.
• Repeat DUI offenses escalate. For someone at least 17 with two prior DUI convictions, the offense level rises out of Class C territory and can carry jail exposure, and deferred disposition becomes unavailable.

The difference between the two charges, and the under-21 case in full, is on DWI vs. DUI in Texas.

Paying for a Lawyer for an Adult Child

If your child is 18 or older, you can hire and pay for their lawyer. This is common and there is nothing awkward about it.

What it does not do is make you the client. The lawyer’s client is the person charged, and a good lawyer will say so at the first meeting rather than let a paying parent discover it later.

In practice: you can call, ask about process and cost, attend meetings your child wants you at, and be as involved as your child agrees to. What you cannot do is direct the defense over your child’s objection, or require the lawyer to report to you on things your child asked to keep private.

That constraint protects your child. A lawyer who took instructions from whoever paid would be a worse lawyer, your child would know it, and would stop being candid. The candor is what makes the representation work.

What to look for when hiring is on Choosing a Texas DWI Lawyer. One suggestion: bring your child to the consultation rather than going alone.

What You Can and Cannot Be Told

This is the part that frustrates parents most, so here it is plainly.

Attorney-client privilege belongs to the client. For an adult child, that is your child. The lawyer cannot tell you what your child told them without your child’s permission, no matter who wrote the check.

The permission is easy to give and most young adults give it, often with relief, because explaining a case they do not fully understand is its own burden. Ask your child directly and early, and let them decide rather than pressing the lawyer.

There is also a lot the lawyer can discuss without any waiver: how the process works, the deadlines, the range of outcomes, what the fee covers, when the court dates are. That is often most of what a parent actually wants.

One thing to avoid: do not discuss the facts of the case in group texts or on social media. Family communications are not privileged the way lawyer communications are.

If Your Child Is Under 17

Texas draws its adult line at 17, not 18, and this catches almost every parent by surprise. A 17-year-old charged with DWI is handled in adult criminal court, with the same procedures and the same exposure as a 25-year-old.

Under 17 is not a softer version of the same process. It is a different system, and the word for it is juvenile court. A DWI committed by a child under 17 is “delinquent conduct” under Family Code §51.03, which names Penal Code §49.04 expressly, and it is heard by the juvenile court rather than a county or district criminal court. Penal Code §8.07(b) bars adult prosecution for an offense committed before a person turned 17 unless the juvenile court waives its jurisdiction and certifies the case to adult court.

That changes the vocabulary along with the venue. There is no conviction in juvenile court, there is an adjudication. There is no guilty plea in the adult sense, there is a plea of true or not true. Dispositions run to probation, programs, and supervision rather than a county jail sentence, and the rules about who can later see the record are different.

Two things follow for you. Your involvement is not merely permitted here, it is structural: the juvenile system is built around parental notice, presence, and participation, and the court can require it. And the choice of lawyer matters more rather than less, because juvenile practice is its own specialty, and if certification to adult court is ever raised it is the highest-stakes question in the case.

One related provision is worth knowing for the lower-level under-21 alcohol cases, which are handled in justice or municipal court rather than juvenile court: a judge can order the parent, managing conservator, or guardian to do or refrain from doing something, where that makes it more likely the minor completes the alcohol awareness program or the community service. Parental involvement in those cases is not merely permitted, it is sometimes ordered.

If They Are Away at College

A DWI arrest a few hours from home adds logistics to an already bad week, and it adds one strategic question.

The logistics first. The case stays in the county where the arrest happened, not where you live and not where the school is. Court settings will be there. A lawyer who practices in that county is worth more than one who is closer to your house, and in many settings your child’s appearance can be handled by counsel rather than requiring a drive.

The strategic question is the school. Many institutions have their own conduct process that runs independently of the criminal case, on its own timeline and its own standard of proof, and it can reach housing, scholarships, athletic eligibility, and standing. That process can move faster than the courts do, which means a student can face a campus consequence while the criminal case is still early.

The important part: what your child says in a campus proceeding is not automatically protected in the criminal case. Before responding to any university inquiry, letter, or conduct hearing, the criminal lawyer should see it. This is covered in full on College Students and DWI.

Talk to a Texas DWI Lawyer Before the Next Deadline

If your child was arrested for DWI or an under-21 alcohol offense, the first few days matter. The license deadline may be running, the criminal case may already be forming, and a college conduct process may move on its own schedule.

Deandra Grant Law can help you understand which charge your child is facing, what deadlines apply, and how to protect both the criminal case and the license case. We can also explain what parents can do, what the client controls, and how to keep family involvement helpful rather than harmful.

Call (214) 225-7117 or contact Deandra Grant Law to schedule a consultation.