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Your Hurst Criminal Defense Attorney
A criminal charge filed against a Hurst resident is heard in Tarrant County’s District Court if it’s a felony, or its County Court at Law if it’s a Class A or B misdemeanor; Texas’s three-tier criminal court structure applies the same way here as anywhere else in the state. What actually happens between arrest and that first court date, including bail and the right to counsel and how quickly either has to happen, is covered further down this page. That distinction isn’t a technicality: it decides which court has jurisdiction, what the punishment range looks like, and how the case proceeds from the first hearing forward.
Bail, Personal Bonds, and the Right to Counsel
Under Article 17.15 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, as amended by the Damon Allen Act, bail can’t be used as ‘an instrument of oppression’: a magistrate has to consider the specific offense, the defendant’s ability to pay, public safety, and criminal history before setting an amount or granting a personal bond. A surety bond through a licensed bail bondsman, typically at a set percentage of the total bail amount, remains the most common way most defendants actually post bail once an amount is set. Article 15.17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure puts a hard 48-hour clock on this: every arrested person has to appear before a magistrate within that window, be told the specific charges against them, have their right to an attorney explained, and have bail conditions set. The Fair Defense Act ties the counsel-appointment deadline to county population, and Tarrant County clears the 250,000 threshold, which means the 1-working-day appointment deadline applies rather than the 3-day deadline a smaller county would have.
What a Conviction in Tarrant County Could Mean
The classification a charge receives under Penal Code Chapter 12, spanning a fine-only Class C misdemeanor up through a first-degree felony’s 5-to-99-year range, determines both which court hears it and what a conviction can actually carry. A state jail felony, the lowest felony tier at 180 days to 2 years, is still served in a state jail facility rather than county jail or prison, and still carries a felony record even at that lower end of the range. Separate from the criminal case, a DWI arrest triggers a civil, administrative consequence: under Transportation Code §724.041, a driver has only 15 calendar days from notice to request a hearing on the license suspension, or the suspension takes effect automatically 40 days after notice. That administrative process runs on its own clock under Texas’s implied-consent law and proceeds independently of whatever happens in the criminal case itself.
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How Texas Grades Assault, Theft, and Drug Possession Charges
Assault under Penal Code §22.01 covers a wide range of conduct: a threat or offensive contact alone can be a Class C misdemeanor, while causing actual bodily injury is typically a Class A misdemeanor, but the charge escalates to a felony when the alleged victim is a public servant, a family member, or someone in another protected category. Texas doesn’t charge every theft the same way: §31.03 scales the classification directly to the value taken, from a Class C misdemeanor under $100 through a state jail felony at $2,500, and on up to a first-degree felony once the value reaches $300,000. Texas grades drug possession by weight, not a flat charge: a Penalty Group 1 substance (§481.115), with cocaine and methamphetamine as common examples, is a state jail felony under 1 gram, escalating to a third-degree felony at 1 to under 4 grams and a second-degree felony at 4 to under 200 grams. Marijuana runs on its own separate scale under §481.121, starting at a Class B misdemeanor under 2 ounces.
What Texas Actually Offers: Expunction or Nondisclosure
Expunction (Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55A, which replaced the former Chapter 55 on January 1, 2025) is not available for a conviction or for successfully completed deferred adjudication; that’s what an order of nondisclosure, under Government Code Chapter 411, is actually for. Certain offenses are permanently excluded from nondisclosure no matter how the case resolved, including any offense involving family violence and most sex offenses.
Tarrant County's Courts and Jail
Tarrant County takes a different approach than Dallas’s split-building setup: the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center at 401 West Belknap Street in Fort Worth houses all 11 District Courts with criminal jurisdiction, all 10 County Criminal Courts, the Criminal District Attorney’s Office, and the District Clerk’s Office in one building, a genuine one-stop courthouse rather than separate booking and courtroom facilities in different parts of downtown.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office is organized into five divisions (Criminal, Civil, Investigation, Operations, and the Chief of Staff’s office), with more than 135 attorneys in the Criminal Division alone reviewing an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 felony and misdemeanor cases every year. The Tarrant County Jail, at 501 West 10th Street in Fort Worth, is one of the largest county jails in Texas by capacity, and it’s the same countywide system an arrest anywhere in Tarrant County, including Arlington, a separate city from the county seat, feeds into, not a separate Arlington-specific facility.
Nearby cities we also cover: the Grand Prairie criminal defense resource, the Carrollton criminal defense resource, our Arlington page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is bail set after an arrest in Tarrant County?
A magistrate has to individually weigh the offense, the defendant’s ability to pay, public safety, and criminal history under the Damon Allen Act (CCP Art. 17.15), not apply a fixed bail schedule.
Why does county population matter for the appointment deadline?
Because Tarrant County’s population is over 250,000, the Fair Defense Act requires appointed counsel within 1 working day, not the 3-day window smaller counties get.
Can a Class C misdemeanor in Texas result in jail time?
No, a Class C misdemeanor under Penal Code §12.23 is fine-only, up to $500, with no jail exposure at all, the mildest of Texas’s three misdemeanor classes.
Is marijuana possession charged the same as other drug possession?
No, marijuana is classified separately under Health & Safety Code §481.121, not under the Penalty Group ladder other drugs fall under: under 2 ounces is a Class B misdemeanor, while a Penalty Group 1 substance like cocaine can already be a state jail felony at under 1 gram.
Is an ALR suspension the same length as a DWI conviction’s license suspension?
No, they’re separate and can run for different lengths: an ALR suspension from refusing or failing a breath/blood test typically runs 90 days to 2 years depending on prior history, while a suspension following an actual DWI conviction is set separately under Transportation Code §524.
Does a nondisclosure order remove a record from a background check entirely?
Not from every one: a nondisclosure order under Government Code Chapter 411 seals a record from public and most private-employer background checks, but the record remains visible to certain government agencies and licensing boards.
Every Decision From Here Matters
From the moment of arrest, a Hurst criminal case starts moving immediately, and decisions made in the first few days can shape everything that follows.
