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Facing a criminal charge out of San Antonio means the case is assigned to a specific tier of Bexar County’s court system: District Court for a felony, County Court at Law for a Class A or B misdemeanor. 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 San Antonio
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 Bexar 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. None of this changes the underlying constitutional guarantee: Texas still recognizes a right to bail for virtually every offense except a capital one where the proof is evident.
Penalties Under Texas Law: What a Conviction Actually Means
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. Texas’s implied-consent law means a DWI arrest can affect a driver’s license before the criminal case is even resolved: the 15-day ALR hearing-request window under Transportation Code §724.041 runs on its own clock, independent of the criminal court process. On the criminal side, the offense itself escalates from a Class B misdemeanor on a first offense up through a third-degree felony on a third, under Penal Code §49.09.
Facing a criminal charge in San Antonio? Get matched with an attorney now.
Three of the Most Common Charges We See in Bexar County
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). 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.
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. A nondisclosure order doesn’t erase the underlying event the way expunction does; it restricts who can see it, while law enforcement and certain licensing agencies can still access it.
Bexar County's Courts and Jail
The Cadena-Reeves Justice Center at 300 Dolorosa Street in downtown San Antonio houses both tiers of Bexar County’s criminal courts, its County Courts at Law for misdemeanors and its District Courts for felonies, with the Texas Legislature having specifically authorized 10 Criminal District Courts for Bexar County with original jurisdiction over felony matters.
The Bexar County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, headquartered separately from the courthouse at the Paul Elizondo Tower on West Nueva Street, has been working through a real felony case backlog in recent years: more than 21,000 felony cases at various stages at one point, with over 10,000 still waiting to be presented to a grand jury, and responded by hiring 23 additional prosecutors, a push credited with a 59% drop in the backlog.
Nearby coverage: our coverage in Seguin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can bail be denied entirely in Texas?
Yes, in narrow circumstances: Texas Constitution Article I, Section 11(a) allows bail to be denied for certain repeat felony offenders, a felony committed while already on bail, or a violent or sexual offense committed while on bail or parole.
How quickly will I actually get a court-appointed lawyer?
Bexar County falls above the Fair Defense Act’s 250,000-population line, so the appointment clock is 1 working day, the faster of the two statutory tiers.
What’s the difference between a state jail felony and a third-degree felony?
A state jail felony carries 180 days to 2 years in state jail; a third-degree felony carries 2 to 10 years in prison, different facilities and a meaningfully different range under Penal Code Chapter 12.
What turns a simple assault into aggravated assault?
Causing serious bodily injury or using or exhibiting a deadly weapon during the assault: either one moves the charge from Penal Code §22.01 to §22.02’s aggravated assault, a second-degree felony (or first-degree in certain family or dating-violence contexts).
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
The bail hearing, the counsel-appointment clock, and every deadline that follows in a San Antonio case doesn’t pause while someone decides how to respond; the sooner those decisions get real attention, the more options usually remain.
