Aggravated DWI

Question: What are the penalties for aggravated DWI in Texas?

Answer:

When you say aggravated DWI, in Texas, there are two or three ways a case can be aggravated. Aggravated generally means enhanced penalties. One of the ways, on a DWI-first, to be aggravated is if your blood or breath result is a .15 or above. Normally, if it’s just barely over a .15, we can get the prosecutor to drop it down to under a .15. That affects the length of probation, fines, and surcharges. If you are barely over, very often, we can get the court and the DA to drop that so it’s not enhanced. There are also other enhancements for injuring someone while drunk driving. There are enhancements if you have multiple DWIs. If you’ve had two DWIs 20 years ago and you get another, this could be a felony and you could go to the penitentiary. It’s a serious enhancement, so we really need to pull out all the stops and try to get the cases thrown out. You need to get priors thrown out. Very often, even when you’re charged with enhanced DWI, it doesn’t stay enhanced.