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DWI Lawyers In Austin

Interstate 35 is the 9th-largest interstate in the United States. It runs north and south from the bottom tip of Laredo, Texas, to the very top of Minnesota. In Texas, I-35 is commonly known for connecting Austin and San Antonio. While the exact number of DWI arrests along I-35 is not tracked, it is known for being a hotbed for DWI and other intoxication arrests. I-35 is maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, and various law enforcement agencies enforce Texas laws on these roadways, depending on the county one is passing through.

The DWI attorneys at Adamo & Adamo Law Firm have the experience and dedication you need for your case. In a lot of ways, the uneven enforcement of DWI law is an injustice, a trampling of your rights as a Texan and an American. But our goal is to fight the charges against you and help you gain freedom and answers.

DWI Stakes Are Higher Than You Expect

At Adamo & Adamo Law Firm, our lawyers often refer to DWI offenses as political crimes. This is because alcohol (i.e., M.A.D.D.) and drug awareness groups pump a lot of time and money into stiffening DWI penalties. You’ve seen the DWI billboards and propaganda:

“Drink, Drive, Go To Jail”
“Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving”
“DWI, You Can’t Afford It”
“The eyes of APD are upon you.”

These slogans are misguided, biased, and prejudicial. It is perfectly legal to drink and drive as long as you are not intoxicated.

Buzzed driving is not drunk driving. In fact, drunk or buzzed are not legal Texas DWI terms. It is not mentioned anywhere in the Texas Penal Code.
While DWIs are expensive, and you can’t afford a DWI conviction, with our Travis County DWI lawyers on your side we can fight the DWI; and win!

Contact the #1 Austin DWI Lawyer at Adamo & Adamo Law Firm for more information.

Travis County DWI Punishment Ranges

The most common question for a DWI criminal attorney is, “I have been charged with (X), will I go to prison?” DWI criminal defense attorneys, familiar with the Texas justice system, will be able to explain all your options to you. While the goal is always to achieve results, each case is different and presents a different way to reach that goal. The Travis County DWI Attorneys at the Adamo & Adamo Law Firm are experienced and creative in your defense. We often tell clients that if there is a way to get it dismissed, somehow, someway we’ll find it, and because nearly 50% of our cases are dismissed, we believe that statement is absolutely true.

Below are the punishment ranges for DWI criminal offenses. The punishment ranges do not reflect the potential outcome of your case.

First-Offense Texas DWI:

BAC under 0.15 = Class B Misdemeanor, punishable from 3 to 180 days in jail and/or up to a $2000 fine.
BAC over 0.15 = Class A Misdemeanor, punishable up to 1 year in jail and/or up to a $4000 fine.

Second Offense Texas DWI:

Class A Misdemeanor, punishable from 30 days to 1 year in jail and/or up to a $4000 fine.

Note: Your Texas driver’s license may be suspended for 180 days to 2 years.

Third Offense Texas DWI:

3rd Degree Felony, punishable by 2-10 years in prison and/or up to a $10,000 fine.

Note: Your Texas driver’s license may be suspended for 180 days to 2 years.

DWI with a Child Passenger (child passenger under 15 years of age):

State Jail Felony, punishable from 180 days to 2 years in a state-jail facility and/or a fine up to $10,000.

Intoxication Assault (elements = accident + serious bodily injury + accident occurred because intoxication):

3rd Degree Felony, punishable by 2-10 years in prison, and up to a $10,000 fine.

Note: If you are granted probation, you will serve a minimum of 30 days in jail as a condition. An experienced and qualified DWI criminal defense attorney may be able to convince the court of alternatives to jail (i.e., home confinement).

Intoxication Manslaughter (elements = accident + death + because of intoxication):

2nd Degree Felony, punishable from 2- 20 years in prison, and up to a $10,000 fine.

Note: If you are granted probation, you will serve a minimum of 180 days in jail as a condition.

Texas DWI Open Container in a vehicle

Under Texas Law, if you have an open container (i.e., beer, cocktail) in your vehicle while arrested for DWI, there is a minimum jail sentence of 6 days. As a practical matte,r our Austin DWI lawyers are often able to get this enhancement dropped.

Vehicle or watercraft as a deadly weapon under Texas DWI law

In felony DWI and serious intoxication crimes, like Texas intoxication assault and Texas intoxication manslaughter, prosecutors often seek a deadly weapon finding. If true, a deadly weapon finding increases the minimum prison sentence by 50%. In other words, if sentenced to prison, you would not be eligible for parole until after at least 50% or half of your sentence was served.

In order for the prosecution to be successful in a deadly weapon finding, they must prove beyond a reasonable doubt:

The object meets the definition of a deadly weapon.
1. Under Texas law, a motor vehicle may become a deadly weapon if the manner of its use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.
The deadly weapon was used or exhibited during the transaction on which the felony conviction was based; AND
Other people were put in actual danger.
1. “Other” means someone other than the driver must have been put in danger of death or serious bodily injury.
2. The danger must be actual, not hypothetical. Drichas v. State, 175 S.W.3d 795, 797-99 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).

Winning Your Austin DWI Case.

Texas began breath alcohol testing on a statewide level in 1968 using the Breathalyzer. In 1980, the Intoxilyzer 4011 was introduced and upgraded to the Intoxilyzer 5000 in 1988. For nearly 30 years, the Intoxilyzer 5000 was the preferred choice for Texas law enforcement to obtain a breath sample from suspected DWI drivers. That was until recently, when the Intoxilyzer 9000 was developed and became the latest machine to estimate a suspected intoxicated driver’s BAC.

Of course, like its predecessors, the Intoxilyzer 9000 comes with uncertainty and reliability issues.

The Austin DWI Lawyers at Adamo & Adamo Law Firm will attack:

The inherent margin of error in the BrAC machine of 0.02;
Possibility residual alcohol or mouth alcohol inflated the result;
Possibility stomach alcohol vapors (GERD) combined with breath alcohol to inflate the result;
Probability the machine’s assumption a person’s breath temperature is 34 degrees inflated the result (result is inflated by 6% for every 1 degree above 34);
Possibility radio frequency interference (RFI) invalidated the result;
Blood/breath partition ration assumption of 2100:1. Scientific studies have shown a person’s blood/breath partition ration can range from 900:1 – 4100:1.

Example: the machine registers a 0.10 BrAC at 2100:1

At 900:1 that same 0.10 = (0.10/2100) X 900 = 0.04

At 4100:1 that same 0.10 = (0.10/2100) X 4100 = 0/19

Possibility machine reads interferents and falsely reports them as ethanol (e.g., occupational exposure to chemicals (hairdresser, painter, etc.), everyday exposure to chemicals, sanitizer used inside the breath test operating room, etc.)

Our Travis County DWI lawyers will also subpoena the machine’s maintenance records, repair records, service records, etc., just as we do with DWI blood tests.

The point is that the breath test machine results are ripe for attack, and we can use the machine’s issues to provide reasonable doubt and win your Travis County DWI.

Beating The Blood Test In A DWI.

At Adamo & Adamo Law Firm, we have the necessary tools and resources to provide an in-depth examination of everything that went into the breath or blood test. We keep records of faulty machines and lab analysts from prior cases and will subpoena all the records of either the breath machine or the blood machine to determine the reliability of the test. Oftentimes, our Travis County DWI Lawyers are able to keep the breath or blood result from the jury’s eyes and ears due to lab protocol error, machine reliability issues, analyst error, etc.

If you consented to a blood test or a warrant was drawn to take your blood, there are a number of evidentiary hurdles the government must overcome in order for the result to be admitted into evidence. If these requirements are not met, your Austin DWI lawyer can suppress the blood results.

The officer must have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop you.
The officer must have reasonable suspicion to detain you.
The officer must have probable cause to arrest you.
If you consent to a blood draw, it must be voluntary.
If you consent to a blood draw, the blood must be taken by an authorized person and in a sanitary place (shockingly, Texas Courts have held jail clinics sanitary).
If a warrant is obtained, there must be a supporting, sworn affidavit showing sufficient facts to establish probable cause of DWI.
If a warrant is obtained, the blood draw must be performed in a reasonable manner (i.e. in accordance with accepted medical practices and does not invite an unjustified element of personal risk of infection or pain).
The blood drawer (e.g., nurse, physician, chemist, qualified technician) must be qualified.
The blood drawer must follow accepted medical practices when drawing blood.
Most often, Blood Kits are provided by the officer. The kit should be within the expiration date.
Grey top tubes are used because they contain the proper anticoagulant and preservative (sodium fluoride and potassium oxalate). The tube must be inverted properly and not be compromised.
After the blood is drawn, the kit should be properly assembled, sealed and transported to the police property room for refrigeration (with a temperature between 2-8 degrees centigrade.

Any failure at any point in the above procedures can and should invalidate the results of the test.

Blood Testing – Headspace Gas Chromatography With Ionization Detector (GC-FID)

Without going into the details of the machine, imagine a driveway. By the garage is a pile of balls: basketballs, footballs, baseballs, golf balls, tennis balls, etc. If you took a blower and aimed it at the pile, the balls would begin traveling towards the street. Because of their weight and shape, they would all travel at different speeds. You would be able to count or quantify the number of basketballs, footballs, baseballs, etc., as they reached the end of the driveway. You would also be able to time how long it took for each to do so. Gas Chromatography acts in a similar manner. Our blood is made up of different compounds and substances. These compounds are pushed through the machine and exit at different times (this is known as the retention time).

The results are reflected and quantified on a chromatogram.

Your Austin DWI lawyer will and should request thousands of pages of documents and examine them to determine if the machine was properly separating and quantifying ethanol. After all, these are overworked, often poorly cared-for machines. Like any machine, such as a washer, dryer, refrigerator, etc., they are prone to wear, tear, and error.

Enzymatic Blood Testing (Hospital Testing):

If you were involved in a car accident and blood was taken at the hospital, the hospital will often use this method of testing. It is quick and inexpensive, and doctors need to know the most efficient way to treat you. These blood results are often subpoenaed by the government. In this type of testing, plasma or serum is tested as opposed to whole blood. Plasma or serum yields a result 16-25% higher than whole blood. Any plasma or serum result must be converted to whole blood in order to be admissible in court. Further, this type of testing is prone to false positives. Interferents, such as lactic acid, can confuse the machine into thinking there is ethanol in the blood when there may not be. High lactic acid is synonymous with bodily injury. If you were in a car crash, for example, and sustained serious injuries, your lactic acid level would likely be high and could influence the accuracy of the blood test.

DWI Retrograde Extrapolation (Going Back In Time)

In the majority of DWI cases, if a breath or blood sample is taken, it is done anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours after the vehicle stop. In Texas, the state must prove that the breath or blood result was 0.08 or higher at the time of driving. They may attempt to prove this by establishing a range of possible alcohol concentrations at the time of driving through a theory known as retrograde extrapolation.

Retrograde extrapolation, or back extrapolation, is an attempt by the state to go “back in time” and try to predict what a person’s Breath Alcohol Concentration (BrAC) or Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) could have been at the time of driving. The Travis County DWI Lawyers at the Adamo Law Firm understand the limits of retrograde extrapolation through a deep understanding of how alcohol is absorbed and eliminated in the human body.

In a typical scenario the state asks the state’s expert to calculate (1) how many drinks would have been in your client’s system at the time of the breath or blood test and (2) what your client’s breath or blood alcohol level would have been at the time of driving based on a list of factors the state provides.

The truth is the formula used by the state’s expert in trial is a shortened version of a mathematical formula that uses certain averages and makes certain assumptions about you. Exposing these assumptions is one of the simplest ways to challenge testimony on retrograde extrapolation.

At the very minimum, a person attempting to perform a retrograde extrapolation calculation needs the following information:

Gender
Weight
Food in the stomach or on an empty stomach
Time food was eaten
Time of last drink
Time of first drink

Arguably, the calculation should also take into account:

Body mass index
Type of alcoholic beverage consumed
Type of food eaten
Trauma or stress that could have delayed absorption.

This is the reason the officer may have asked what you had to drink, when you had your first and last drinks, if you had anything to eat, etc. More often than not, the state does not have the necessary facts to attempt retrograde extrapolation and an experienced DWI lawyer will request

Answering Questions About DUI Charges In Texas

One of our first jobs for our clients is providing answers to all their questions and guiding them through the challenges ahead. A lot of our meetings with clients start with the following questions:

What is a DWI in Texas?

DWI is a criminal offense prohibiting a person from OPERATING a MOTOR VEHICLE in a PUBLIC PLACE while INTOXICATED. The government has the burden of proving each of the above elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Our DWI Law Firm can show you how difficult that can be.

Is a DUI the same as a DWI in Texas?

In Texas, if you are over 21 years old and suspected of driving while intoxicated, you will be charged with DWI. If you are under 21 years old and the officer smells a “detectable amount of alcohol” on your breath, you can be charged with DUI. A DUI is the same punishment as a speeding ticket.

What does intoxicated mean?

Intoxicated means you have “lost the normal use of either your mental or physical faculties or a breath, blood or urine test shows your alcohol level to be 0.08 or higher at the time of driving.” The government may also enhance a DWI if the blood alcohol result is 0.15 or higher at the time of the test. For example, if you blew or your blood was drawn and the result comes back 0.15 or higher, the original DWI accusation is enhanced from a Class B misdemeanor (up to 180 days in jail) to a Class A misdemeanor (up to 1 year in jail).

What is operating in Texas?

Common sense would tell you that operating a motor vehicle means driving a motor vehicle, but Texas law doesn’t always make sense. While most arrests involve the observation of a person driving, a person does not have to be driving to be arrested in Texas for DWI. Texas courts have upheld DWI convictions where the vehicle was not even moving and have stated, “while driving does involve operation, operation does not necessarily involve driving.” Denton v. State, 911 S.W.2d 388, 389 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995). An example of operating without driving would be asleep in a stopped vehicle with the front tire against the curb, foot on the brake, and the engine running.

What does BAC mean in Texas?

BAC in Texas means Blood Alcohol Concentration and is measured by the number of grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood; the number of grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath (a.k.a. BrAC); or the number of grams of alcohol per 67 milliliters of urine. The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were 0.08 or higher at the time of driving or 0.15 or higher at the time of the test. Your Travis County DWI lawyer should be able to clearly explain these numbers to you.

The judge keeps out any attempts made by the state to go back in time.

My bonding papers say DWI 1st, BAC > 0.08. Does that mean my BAC sample was 0.08?

No. The information on the bonding papers represents what you are likely to be charged with. In this instance, it is a Class B misdemeanor.

If you provided a breath sample, your Travis County DWI attorney will receive the results fairly quickly. If a blood sample is given, the results may not be available for a month or even longer.

Why do I have Bond Conditions?

If you are charged with a DWI first offense, bond conditions are a matter of discretion for the court. Some courts may require you to install a vehicle ignition interlock device and prohibit you from driving a vehicle not equipped with the device.

If you are charged with a subsequent DWI offense (DWI 2nd) or a more serious intoxication offense like Intoxication Assault or Intoxication Manslaughter, you WILL be required to install a vehicle ignition interlock device and be prohibited from driving a vehicle not equipped with said device.

If you do not have a vehicle to drive or a valid driver’s license, the court may order a portable device or SCRAM device.

If given the choice of the necessary evils, we recommend the interlock. It is the least expensive and the least intrusive.

After my Austin DWI arrest, the police took my license. Is it suspended?

No. If you refused or failed a breath and/or blood test, the officer most likely confiscated your driver’s license. In return, he/she should have issued you a temporary driving certificate authorizing you to drive for forty (40) days and given you notice that your driver’s license is subject to suspension. You have fifteen (15) days from the date you received notice to request an Administrative License Revocation (ALR) Hearing. If you fail to request a hearing within the fifteen (15) day window, the opportunity is lost and your license WILL BE suspended on the 40th day after receiving notice (typically calculated from the date you were arrested for DWI).

Upon a proper hearing request, the suspension of your driver’s license is stayed or stopped while you await the hearing. You can go to DPS and acquire a new license during this time.

Note: The ALR is separate from the DWI. The ALR is in a different court, with different prosecutors and judges. Your Travis County DWI lawyer can explain in more detail.

Note: If your license is suspended, you will be entitled to an occupational license.

I didn’t receive a temporary driving certificate from the Travis County or the Austin police department officer. What do I do now?

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) should mail you a notice that your driver’s license may be suspended. You have fifteen (15) days from the date you received said notice to request an ALR hearing. Your DWI lawyer can request the hearing for you. DPS will send the notice to the address listed on your driver’s license (so make sure it is correct) or your DWI lawyer’s office if he/she requests the hearing for you.

Make sure a hearing is properly requested. This can save your license from being suspended.

I refused to provide a breath or blood sample. How long MAY my license be suspended?

If (the if is important) your Texas driver’s license is suspended, the length of the suspension is:
For a First Offense, Travis County DWI, if you refused a breath or blood test, your license can be suspended for 180 days. If you have previously been arrested for an intoxication offense and refused a test at that time, your license can be suspended for two years. If a warrant was obtained to draw your blood, for purposes of ALR hearings, it is treated as a refusal.
For a First Offense, Travis County DWI, if you provided a breath or blood sample and it showed an alcohol concentration over 0.08, your license can be suspended for 90 days.
Your license can be suspended for one year if you have a prior DWI conviction or suspension within the last ten years.

I don’t have a Texas license. Can it still be suspended?

Yes and No. Texas can, via the Interstate Compact on Driver’s License, notify the issuing state of your license suspension and ask that the state honor it (not all states are part of the Interstate Compact Act). Additionally, Texas can prohibit you from obtaining a Texas License. A Texas officer should not seize a license from another state. Talk to your criminal attorney to learn more.

The Austin DWI Lawyers At The Adamo & Adamo Law Firm Are:

Trained & Certified in the Administration of Field Sobriety Exercises

In order to convict, the state must show that a person did not have the normal use of their mental or physical faculties. A lot of times, the tests are not properly administered, and the DWI lawyers at the Adamo Law Firm have the necessary training and experience to move and squash the tests.

Founding Members of the National DUI Defense Lawyer Association

Our Austin DWI lawyers and attorneys have access to the latest and greatest tools, resources, and experts to help win your DWI case.

We’re Here To Fight For You

There is a ton that goes into defending against a Travis County DWI. The State of Texas is willing to spend a lot of money and resources to secure a DWI conviction. You need an experienced DWI law firm with the knowledge, experience, and tools to fight the DWI. Call Adamo & Adamo Law Firm and let us get to work! Call 713-237-8380 or send an email using this online form.