New DUI Arrest While Already on Probation in Texas

Attorney Answer

A new DUI arrest while you are on probation puts two cases in motion, and the probation case is usually the faster and more dangerous of the two. It is decided by a judge alone, on a lower standard, and it can be over before your new charge is ever tried.

Revocation is governed by Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.751, titled "Violation of Conditions of Community Supervision; Detention and Hearing." Two features of it explain why this proceeding moves so differently from a criminal trial. First, on your motion, the judge who ordered your arrest for an alleged violation must bring you before the court for a hearing within 20 days of that motion. Second, the hearing is to the judge without a jury, and after it the judge may continue, extend, modify, or revoke your community supervision.

The statute does not itself set the burden of proof. Texas courts apply a preponderance of the evidence at revocation hearings — a judge-made standard, not statutory text, and that is the reason a revocation can succeed on allegations that have never been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the new case. The practical consequence is the thing most people get wrong: an acquittal or a dismissal in the new DWI case does not automatically save your probation, and a revocation does not decide the new charge either.

There is a third proceeding running alongside both, and it is the quietest. A Texas DWI arrest starts an administrative license case that has nothing to do with either the criminal court or the probation court.

What you can do

1. Read your probation conditions today. Most require you to report an arrest within a set number of days. Failing to report is a separate violation, on top of the arrest itself. 2. Call the same lawyer for both matters, before you speak to your probation officer. What you say to a probation officer is not confidential and can be used in the revocation hearing and in the new case. 3. Find out whether a motion to revoke and a capias have been filed. Ask your lawyer to check the court's records — not the probation office. 4. Ask whether bond is available on the revocation warrant. In some counties there is none, and knowing that in advance changes how you plan. 5. Request your administrative license hearing immediately. 6. Comply with every existing condition in the meantime — reporting, fees, classes, testing. New violations pile onto the same motion. 7. If you want the revocation hearing set promptly, ask counsel about the 20-day provision in art. 42A.751; whether that helps you or hurts you depends on your case, so make it a decision, not a default.

⏱ Time limits apply. Request the administrative license hearing first. That window is short — roughly 15 days from the notice of suspension you were given at arrest, with the exact date printed on the notice — and it runs separately from both the new criminal case and the revocation. It is the one deadline here that expires while you are waiting for a court date and cannot be reopened afterward. Separately, Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.751 sets the 20-day hearing timeline once you move for it, measured from your motion. The license case and the criminal case are two tracks with different standards of proof, and they can come out opposite ways on the same stop.