DWI With a Child Passenger in Texas
DWI with a passenger younger than 15 is a state jail felony in Texas, punishable by 180 days to two years and a fine up to $10,000. It also frequently generates a separate Department of Family and Protective Services investigation that runs on its own timeline, by its own rules, and does not wait for the criminal case.
Most parents who call us about this charge are not asking about jail. They are asking whether their kids are going to be taken. That question needs a lawyer today, not after the first court setting.
Two cases, two sets of rules
The criminal case and the CPS investigation proceed in parallel, and what you say in one can be used in the other. A caseworker asking friendly questions at your kitchen table is generating a record. Cooperating is often the right choice, but doing it without counsel, before anyone has explained how the two tracks interact, is how people damage a criminal case while trying to protect their family.
How these cases are defended
The underlying DWI is still a DWI. Every defense that applies to an ordinary intoxication case applies here: the basis for the stop, the field sobriety testing, the blood warrant and the lab work, and whether the State can prove operation and intoxication at the same moment.
The child-passenger element is separately provable and separately attackable. The child's age at the time of the offense and their presence in the vehicle both have to be established. Where the felony element fails, the case reverts to a misdemeanor DWI, and that difference reaches far beyond the punishment range.
Where the evidence supports a felony charge, the objective shifts to outcomes that protect the family: reduction, resolutions that avoid a felony conviction, and coordination with the CPS timeline so the two cases do not undercut each other.