Austin DWI attorney firm Dunham and Rogers know the Texas DWI laws

Austin, Texas DWI Attorneys handle DWI & drunk driving defense cases in Travis County, Texas. Call Dunham & Rogers today to speak with an Austin DWI Lawyer and find out how they can help you.

For an immediate free consultation about your Texas DWI in Austin call (512) 879-1414 to speak with a criminal DWI defense lawyer about your Driving While Intoxicated charge or simply fill out the contact form to your left and a DWI attorney in Austin will call you. Dunham & Rogers has been handling Texas DWI cases since 1989 and has over 200 years combined legal experience. Many of the criminal defense lawyers are former Assistant District Attorneys with many years of trial experience. But hurry time is important for keeping your Texas Driver's License.

Fill out the form to your left to have Austin DWI Lawyers Dunham & Rogers send you your free arrest report regarding your Travis County, Texas DWI arrest.

Dunham & Rogers handles Texas DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), DUI (Driving Under the Influence) and BWI (Boating While Intoxicated) cases in and around Travis County, Texas. Having Texas Board Certified Criminal Law Specialists^* and former prosecutors handling your DWI defense case in Austin can make the difference between winning, going to jail or doing DWI probation. You will find our law firm to be very knowledgeable about Texas DWI Laws and drunk driving penalties and information.

Finding an Experienced DWI Lawyer in Austin

When selecting legal representation, realize that the experience of your Austin DWI attorney in Texas is very important. The way your DWI defense case is handled will have an influence on the outcome and thus your future. Having Texas Board Certified Criminal Law Specialists^* on your side can mean the difference between obtaining a good result and a bad result. At Dunham & Rogers, many of our criminal defense attorneys have previously been Assistant District Attorneys, spending years perfecting their courtroom skills. We know the procedures of the criminal court system and can make that system work for you.

Proven Track Record against DWI's in Travis County, Texas

Dunham & Rogers has accumulated a highly successful record of acquittals, dismissals and reductions in DWI defense. Each DWI is different, but note that the criminal defense lawyers at Dunham & Rogers always start with the goal of getting your Austin DWI case dismissed or reduced to a traffic ticket.

Serious Consequences for a Texas DWI in Austin

A Texas DWI charge has serious consequences. You may lose your Texas Driver's License, experience a substantial increase in car insurance rates, pay large fines and court costs, suffer a driver's license surcharge ranging from $3,000.00 to $6,000.00, and possibly face jail time.

Don't leave your future to chance. Select an Austin DWI Lawyer in Texas who will fight for you. At Dunham & Rogers we will work for dismissal or reduction of your DWI charge. If we are successful, you may even be able to have your arrest record and fingerprints torn up! Don't let this arrest record affect your job or your future; call us immediately to discuss how we can handle your Austin DWI.

Affordable Legal Fees and Pay Plans

Our legal fees are fair and competitive, especially for Texas Board Certified Criminal Law Specialist. In most DWI cases, we charge a low flat rate and often do not require any money down. The initial consultation is free. When you factor in our legal experience and proven case results, Dunham & Rogers is a good choice for those who want the highest quality of legal representation at a fair and reasonable cost.

A Word of Warning about your Texas Driver's License

You have only 15 days from the date of your DWI arrest in Texas to request a hearing on your Texas Driver's License. According to the Texas DWI laws, if you fail to request a hearing, your Texas Driver's License may be suspended and you face the probability of paying huge fines for several years. It is important that you hire quality legal representation for this hearing to challenge the license suspension. Having legal representation for this license hearing provides an opportunity for your criminal defense attorney to question the arresting police officer. Putting the police officer on the stand helps to establish his or her position, which can be very beneficial to your DWI defense case.

Texas Driver's License Surcharge (Fines)

Since 2003, the Texas Department of Public Safety has been authorized to levy a surcharge on Texas Driver's Licenses suspended for DWI and alcohol related arrests. This surcharge can range from $1,000.00 to $2,000.00 per year for three years. Depending on your DWI, you could be facing a $6,000.00 fee just to keep your Texas Driver's License. Now you know why it is so important to fight your driver's license suspension.

DWI for Civil Lawyers

A few months back local Austin appeals lawyer Todd Smith asked me to speak, albeit briefly, at the Austin Bar Association’s monthly meeting. My assigned topic was a natural one: DWI. Lawyers who attended would be given credit toward their yearly CLE requirements. I was honored and of course agreed.

I assumed that meant I should speak on how to defend a DWI, and so I talked about the initial interview process, the different types of court settings, the ALR process, various defenses to DWI charges and tried to throw in a few other nuggets before my time ran out.

Afterwards I stuck around and talked with people at the bar. I mean the serving-alcoholic -beverages type of bar, not “The State Bar of Texas” by the way. Yes the CLE was held in a bar, and yes, I was just about the only one without a drink in my hand.

At any rate, I discovered quickly that while my short presentation was roundly complimented by those I visited with in fact most attendees had another reason for coming. Of course a divorce lawyer doesn’t really need to know how to defend a DWI; a good one will refer the case out to someone who knows how to handle that kind of case. (See: jack of all trades, master of none.)

I think every single lawyer there asked me some variation of the regular set of questions a DWI lawyer hears:

Should I take a breath test?
Should I do the field sobriety tests?
What do I tell an officer who stops me after I've been drinking?

I told everyone who would listen a few of my standard lines: (1) In Austin, a traffic violation and the odor of an alcoholic beverage on your breath earns you a trip to Travis County Jail. It’s an arrest everybody and charge them with DWI now, and sort it out later kind of world. And (2) It’s cheaper to rent a helicopter to fly you home than it is to get arrested for DWI in Texas, and that can be true even if your lawyer gets the charge dismissed before trial.

Not that it did any good. It was after 5 p.m. when the presentation started, so presumable no one had to return to work but then again I didn’t see anyone calling for a cab when they left. I’m certain I wasn’t the only one to drive home.

Can a DWI Really Ever be Murder?

Scott Henson at Simple Justice writes about the word Murder losing its meaning. Of a man recently convicted of second degree murder in New York for an Intoxication Manslaughter offense, Scott wrote:

It's not to say that McPherson was an innocent man. He was not. It's not to say that McPherson's conduct was excusable. It was not.

But Franklin McPherson did not commit murder. To say he did cheapens the crime for the victims of real murders, and subjects it to the transitory whims of the prosecutor. McPherson was drunk…

In New York, ‘creative’ prosecutors are proceeding under the theory that the defendant acted with depraved indifference to to human life.

Read Scott’s post for why this is faulty legal reasoning. But how did we get to this point – that is, the point where the general public believes this is appropriate? Scott continues:

As has become so very popular, an appeal to emotion is hidden behind vague things that seem to make sense, provided one doesn't let things like the law get in the way. This has long been the push by advocacy groups such as MADD to create a growing public intolerance for drunk driving, and create the impression that ever-increasingly harsh charges and punishments are the only way to stop this plague.

The problem is that these groups have been so successful, and politicians have basked in the reflected glow of this success, that when reality gets in the way of these PR campaigns (meaning when convictions for murder do nothing to stem the tide of drunk driving), they need to find yet a deeper, harsher, more horrific penalty to impose. Yeah, if only they got the death penalty, that would fix the problem!

The reason why they are slaying imaginary dragons is that this is not the crime of murder. It never was, and never will be. Drinking too much and getting drunk is not something that one contemplates as part of a violent crime. Driving home drunk, every stinking drunk, isn't meant to cause harm. It's meant to get home.

In Texas, prosecutors have a gone a different route. Here, where a 3rd DWI conviction is a felony in and of itself, prosecutors have taken to charging Intoxication Manslaughter defendants with Murder if the they have 2 prior misdemeanor convictions for DWI under the ‘felony murder’ rule.

The felony murder rule is a legal doctrine that removes the usual requirement of intent in a murder prosecution and simply holds a defendant responsible for murder if a death occurs while a felony is being committed. Hence in Texas, 2 prior DWIs + an intoxication manslaughter today = a murder prosecution tomorrow.

The problem with this theory is that it means the defendant’s prior convictions are actually what elevate the Intoxication Manslaughter charge to murder. In other words, the entering of the plea on the previous cases or the finding of guilt by the jury is actually an element of the offense of Murder itself.

That doesn’t make sense.

Right now, in Texas, DWI defendants charges with Intoxication Manslaughter face the possibility of a 20 year sentence – certainly that’s enough for an unintentional crime. But if it’s not then the Legislature should simply increase the penalty for that actual offense. Ambitious legal theories advanced by creative prosecutors – or is that creative legal theories advanced by ambitious prosecutors? – should not be the basis for a Murder charge.

Austin DWI Attorney

DWI for Civil Lawyers

Can a DWI Really Ever be Murder?