Federal Criminal Defense in the Western District of Texas

The Western District is geographically enormous. El Paso is closer to San Diego than to Houston, and the Pecos and Del Rio divisions serve some of the least populated country in the United States.

That geography shapes the practice — in how far defendants and families travel, how jury pools are drawn, and how much of the docket is generated at the border.

Divisions and courthouses

San Antonio Division — the John H. Wood Jr. United States Courthouse, 655 East Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, with the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building also in use downtown.

Austin Division — 501 West 5th Street, Austin.

Waco Division — 800 Franklin Avenue, Waco.

El Paso Division — the Albert Armendariz Sr. United States Courthouse, 525 Magoffin Avenue, El Paso.

Del Rio Division — 111 East Broadway, Del Rio.

Midland-Odessa Division — 200 East Wall Street, Midland.

Pecos Division — 410 South Cedar Street, Pecos, with an additional courthouse serving the Big Bend region at Alpine.

Four quite different dockets

Austin — technology, financial fraud, cryptocurrency and digital-asset cases, and public corruption arising from state government. A jury pool unlike anywhere else in the district.

San Antonio — the district's largest bench, with a broad mix including narcotics, firearms, healthcare fraud, and cases connected to the military installations in and around the city, which can raise their own jurisdictional questions.

El Paso — very heavy narcotics, bulk cash, firearms trafficking, and immigration volume generated at the ports of entry, plus significant export control activity.

Midland-Odessa and Pecos — energy-sector fraud and theft alongside interstate narcotics interdiction on I-20 and I-10, in divisions where the nearest courthouse can be hours away.

Checkpoint and border search litigation

A very large share of this district's narcotics cases originate at interior Border Patrol checkpoints — Sierra Blanca on I-10, and the checkpoints north of Laredo and Del Rio — rather than at the border itself.

The law governing interior checkpoints is not the same as the law at a port of entry. A checkpoint stop is permissible for brief immigration inquiry, but its scope is limited, and an extension into a narcotics investigation requires justification. Canine alerts, consent, and the duration of detention are all litigable. Where a case began at a checkpoint, our suppression guide sets out how those challenges are built.

The distance problem is a real defense issue

A defendant charged in the Pecos or Del Rio Division may live hundreds of miles from the courthouse. That affects pretrial supervision conditions, the ability of family to attend, access to treatment programmes that could support a variance argument, and the practical cost of retaining counsel who will actually appear.

These are not sentimental considerations — they bear directly on release conditions under § 3142 and on the § 3553(a) analysis at sentencing, and they should be developed on the record rather than mentioned in passing.

The United States Attorney's Office

The United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas is headquartered in San Antonio with staffed offices in Austin, Waco, El Paso, Del Rio, Midland, and Pecos. Its criminal filing volume is among the highest in the nation, concentrated heavily in the border divisions.

What happens at your first appearance

A magistrate judge takes the initial appearance and addresses release, following a Pretrial Services interview that is not privileged. In the high-volume border divisions these proceedings move quickly and may be conducted in groups.

If detention is sought, the hearing follows within days. Our bond and detention guide explains the statutory presumption that applies to most drug and firearm charges and what it takes to rebut it.

Before you go to the courthouse

Courthouse practicalities change, and they are set locally rather than nationally — electronic device policies in particular vary by district and by judge, and they are revised more often than published guides keep up with. Before a first appearance, confirm the current rules with the Clerk of Court for your division, and arrive substantially earlier than you think you need to.

Bring government-issued photo identification. Expect airport-style screening. If you are represented, your lawyer should tell you exactly where to meet, what to bring, and what to leave in the car — and if nobody has told you that, ask before the morning of.

Who from our office appears here

Our federal practice is led by Of Counsel James Lee Bright, who has more than 25 years of federal trial experience and is admitted in the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western Districts of Texas, the District of Columbia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.

If you are facing federal charges in this district, call (214) 225-7117 for a free, confidential consultation.