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Texas doesn’t route every criminal case to the same courthouse: in Dallas County, a felony charge against an Irving resident goes to District Court, while a Class A or B misdemeanor goes to County Court at Law. What Texas actually requires before bail is set, and how soon a court-appointed attorney has to be assigned, is covered further down this page. This isn’t just a filing formality: the classification a charge receives shapes the bail process, the potential sentence, and even whether a record can later be cleared.
How Bail Actually Gets Set After an Arrest in Irving
Texas’s Damon Allen Act (Senate Bill 6, 2021) rewrote how bail gets set: a magistrate can no longer rely on a fixed bail schedule and instead has to individually weigh the nature of the offense, the defendant’s actual ability to pay, the safety of any victim, law enforcement, and the community, and the defendant’s criminal history, including any prior failures to appear. Texas Constitution Article I, Section 11 still guarantees a right to bail for virtually every offense except a capital one where the proof is evident, and a personal bond, meaning release without posting money subject to conditions, is evaluated under those same Damon Allen Act factors rather than a separate standard. Before any of this happens, Article 15.17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires a magistration hearing within 48 hours of arrest, the point where the charges are formally read, the right to counsel is explained, and a magistrate first sets bail conditions. Because Dallas County’s population exceeds 250,000, the Fair Defense Act (Code of Criminal Procedure Article 1.051) requires a court to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant within 1 working day of the request, not the longer 3-day window smaller counties get.
Penalties Under Texas Law: What a Conviction Actually Means
Under Penal Code Chapter 12, a state jail felony carries 180 days to 2 years in state jail; a third-degree felony carries 2 to 10 years; a second-degree felony carries 2 to 20 years; and a first-degree felony carries 5 to 99 years or life, and each felony tier also carries up to a $10,000 fine. Below the felony tiers, a Class A misdemeanor tops out at a year in county jail and a $4,000 fine, Class B at 180 days and $2,000, and Class C is fine-only, up to $500, with no jail time at all. DWI has its own escalation path under Penal Code Chapter 49, separate from the general classification ladder above: a first offense is a Class B misdemeanor (3 to 180 days, up to $2,000) unless the BAC is 0.15 or higher, which bumps it to a Class A; a second offense is a Class A misdemeanor with a mandatory minimum 30 days; a third is a third-degree felony. A DWI with a passenger under 15 in the vehicle is charged as a state jail felony under §49.045 regardless of whether it’s a first offense.
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Common Charges We Defend in Irving
Not every assault charge in Texas carries the same weight: §22.01 grades a threat or offensive contact as a Class C misdemeanor and actual bodily injury as a Class A misdemeanor, while §22.02’s aggravated assault, meaning serious bodily injury or use of a deadly weapon, is a second-degree felony, or a first-degree felony when a deadly weapon and serious bodily injury combine in a family or dating-violence context. The dollar amount alleged to have been taken is what actually determines a theft charge’s severity under §31.03: misdemeanor tiers run from under $100 (Class C) to under $2,500 (Class A), while felony tiers start at $2,500 (state jail felony) and climb to $300,000 or more (first-degree felony). A drug possession charge’s severity turns on the specific substance’s penalty group and the weight alleged: Penalty Group 1 substances under §481.115 start at a state jail felony below 1 gram and climb from there, while marijuana, classified separately under §481.121 and not folded into the Penalty Group ladder, starts as a Class B misdemeanor under 2 ounces and doesn’t reach felony territory until 4 ounces.
Clearing a Record: Expunction vs. Nondisclosure
Which record-clearing process applies turns on how the case resolved: no conviction at all points toward expunction under Chapter 55A, with its waiting periods scaled by offense severity (180 days for a Class C misdemeanor, 1 year for a Class A or B, 3 years for a felony); a successfully completed deferred adjudication points toward a nondisclosure order under Government Code Chapter 411 instead, which seals rather than destroys the record. The waiting periods for expunction when no conviction resulted scale with the severity of the original charge: 180 days for a Class C misdemeanor, 1 year for a Class A or B, and 3 years for a felony.
Dallas County's Courts and Jail
Dallas County splits booking and the courtroom across two separate buildings: an arrest is processed at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Commerce Street, while the case itself is heard blocks away at the Frank Crowley Courts Building on North Riverfront Boulevard, which holds 17 Criminal District Courts hearing felonies (on the building’s 5th, 6th, and 7th floors specifically) alongside 11 County Criminal Courts hearing Class A and B misdemeanors.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is a large operation by design: over 300 attorneys and staff prosecute more than 40,000 cases a year out of that office alone. The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the Lew Sterrett jail, operates one of the seven largest county jails in the entire country by population, not just the largest in Texas.
Closest service areas: criminal defense attorneys serving Grand Prairie, our Arlington page, Carrollton criminal defense attorneys, the Dallas criminal defense resource.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is bail set after an arrest in Dallas 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?
In Dallas County, which is over the Fair Defense Act’s 250,000-population threshold, appointed counsel must be assigned within 1 working day of the request.
Does a prior conviction affect how a new charge is sentenced in Texas?
Yes, Penal Code Chapter 12’s habitual/repeat-offender enhancements can raise a charge’s punishment range by a full degree or more for a second or subsequent felony, on top of whatever the current charge alone would carry.
When does a theft charge become a felony in Texas?
At $2,500 or more in alleged value; below that, theft under Penal Code §31.03 is a misdemeanor (Class C under $100, Class B under $750, Class A under $2,500), and at $2,500 it becomes a state jail felony, escalating from there by value.
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.
Can a conviction ever be expunged in Texas?
No, expunction under Chapter 55A is not available for a conviction, including one where probation was successfully completed; a nondisclosure order is the applicable process for a successfully completed deferred adjudication instead.
The Clock Is Already Running
Whether it’s a misdemeanor in County Court at Law or a felony in District Court, an Irving case moves forward with or without a defense strategy in place, which is exactly why getting one started early matters.
