Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Jamie Spencer Law Firm : DWI, DUI, Drug Possession : Serving Georgetown, Round Rock, San Marcos, Travis, Williamson, and Hays County, Texas

Question (from an email): I have a situation that I need your help with if you don't mind.

Here it is: I have three public intoxication charges in the past nine years. Got my first one at 21 and my last one at 29. I am 30 now.

The first one was in 1998, was arrested and put on deferred adjudication. Second one was in 2002, was arrested and put on deferred adjudication. Third one was November 2006, pretty recent. Was not arrested but put on deferred adjudication.

Of course I had fines to pay and my first one I had to attend AA meeting. I fulfilled all requirements without incident for all three. First on was in Austin, Texas....second in McKinney, Texas...third in Lake Dallas, Texas. I believe they are all class B misdemeanors correct?

I heard that when you get three then it changes to class A, is that so?

Anyway....In the last five years I have attended school and became a firefighter / Paramedic and am trying to get hired on to a Fire Department. Well, I was an idiot and got a freakin P.I. in November of 2006 and decided to stop drinking all together because it's no good and I am ruining my chances of getting hired on anywhere.

The Fire Department is pretty strict about criminal history, even with misdemeanors and time is the only thing on my side to get hired on. Well, since I not only have three PI charges racked up but one being too recent I can't get hired right now and it's hurting me.

I heard of something called motion of disclosure...will this help me and is this what I need to sort of fix the problem. 

The least I could do is the most recent one…if not all of them…or even the last two. I don't know.

What would you suggest be the best choice? I don't lie on applications and I really don't want to wait longer for time to pass separating me from the last charge. How much would it cost to do this? Please help me. Thanks.

Answer: One quick note, before I give a more substantive answer…

While I definitely don’t think that getting one Public Intoxication arrest makes someone an alcoholic (after all, it’s often more about your attitude than how much you’ve had to drink), I’m glad to hear that after 3 arrests and 1 ticket for PI, you’ve decided to stop drinking. 

Sounds like you either have incredibly bad luck, or quite possibly there’s an alcohol problem that needs addressing.

OK. So for the good news…Public Intoxication in Texas is a Class C misdemeanor, not a Class B, which makes quite a difference.

So, it’s ‘only’ the equivalent of a traffic ticket level offense, but, as you have found out, it can affect your employment possibilities…especially if you have a ‘history’ of PI arrests.

More good news? What you (and probably the Municipal Court prosecutors you dealt with) call ‘deferred adjudication’ for a Class C PI charge, was actually deferred disposition. That means the ‘probation’ you were on was non-reporting, the same way that you don’t check in monthly with a probation officer when you agree to take defensive driving to get your traffic ticket dismissed.

More good news? In Texas, a successfully completed deferred disposition entitles you to an expunction. Expunctions completely erase a record, whereas the Motion for Non-Disclosure that you talked about ‘mostly’ clears your record. So an expunction is better.

A quick digression based on your email before I get to the ‘bad news’…

A Public Intoxication arrest (or ticket) can be enhanced from a Class C, to a Class B misdemeanor, when you have 2 prior convictions. Again, if you successfully completed the deferred disposition, you have no prior convictions, so you aren’t in that category. But that’s what you ‘heard’ about enhancements for Texas Public Intoxication charges, and that part is true.

OK. You knew it was coming. The bad news…for you, anyway… (isn’t the cost of hiring the lawyer always the bad news?)

You can only expunge multiple arrests in Texas in one proceeding if they all happened in the same county. The petition to expunge must be filed in the county that you were arrested. 

Frankly, the majority of the costs involved in any expungement proceeding is preparing the paperwork. Personally, when I apply to erase my client’s criminal history in Austin, I charge an additional fraction of the initial cost to add multiple arrests to the petition. In other words, it doesn’t cost much more to expunge 2 arrests if they happen in the same county.

You were arrested in at least 3 different counties, so you will probably need to hire lawyers in all 3 jurisdictions to get the expunctions. Even if you hired the same lawyer for all three, it’s not just a matter of adding another few paragraphs to the expunction form to include the other cause numbers, etc. There will be separate filing fees for each County Clerk, and separate appearances for the attorney, etc.

I’ve got to end with some good news though. Sounds like your life is taking a turn in the right direction, and while it will cost some money to clear up your criminal history, you are eligible to do so, and in the long run…trust me, that’s what counts.

• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

Someone called and asked me this today: Why did my deferred prosecution show up on a criminal background check?

They had successfully completed a Travis County Deferred Prosecution agreement for a shoplifting (theft) charge. The terms of the agreement were:

• Complete 50 hours of community service
• Attend a Theft/Shoplifting Class
• Stay out of trouble for 1 year

Like all Austin Deferred Prosecution agreements, the case had been dismissed “up front”; meaning that the State dismissed the Theft charge when the agreement was signed, and came back and checked after a year to see whether the defendant had lived up to their end of the bargain.

The defendant had already turned in proof of the community service, and the certificate for completing the class, and had not gotten into any trouble.

Unfortunately for them, during a routine criminal background check by their employer, the arrest “showed up”. Why?

Because they had not gone back after the year was up and expunged the arrest.

Here’s the deal. Let’s say you were arrested in Austin and charged with [DWI, or Assault Family Violence, or Theft, etc.]

An officer with the Austin Police Department arrested you. You were booked into the Travis County Jail and turned over to the custody of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office (the folks in the brown uniforms). You were interviewed by Pre-Trial Services for a Personal Bond. You were magistrated by an Austin Municipal Court Judge.

(This next part of my hypothetical never happens, but I’m using it to prove a point…) As you are walking out the door of the jail, the prosecutor meets you at the door with a dismissal, and admits that a mistake was made: you should never have been arrested. You are free to go. You are no longer on bond. You don’t have ot go to court (or hire a lawyer).

Well…is that the end of the story? No!

All those agencies I mentioned will have a record that you were arrested in Austin, Texas on [a certain date] and charged with [whatever criminal offense]. Several more agencies, such as D.P.S., the County and/or District Attorney’s Offices, TCIC, NCIC (Texas & National Crime Information Centers) will have a that same record of your arrest in a matter of days or weeks.

Same thing when you hire a lawyer and get your case dismissed. There is still a record of your arrest. And that’s what expungement is for.

An Expunction is simply a civil lawsuit against all the government agencies that have a record of your dismissed or acquitted case, demanding that they destroy the records of the arrest.

Why is that necessary? Because, unfortunately, folks think that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If they see that you were arrested, they very well may assume that you were guilty, even if you weren’t convicted.

Bottom Line? Getting a dismissal is not the same as “getting the arrest off your record.”

• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks

I suppose I can really only to speak to criminal defense in and around Austin, but the general answer to this question is going to be “No”. We need to dig a little deeper though.

Assuming, as the question does, that the person has never been arrested before, and is charged with a first time offense of DWI, Possession of Marijuana, Theft, or some other non assaultive offense, most judges will grant the defendant probation, even if they go to jury trial and lose. And most cases, fewer than five percent, end up going to jury trial; most criminal cases are wrapped up in some form of plea bargain, whether it involves being convicted, deferred probation, a reduction of charges, or even an agreed dismissal.

Unfortunately, there are too many attorneys who speak with potential clients in a manner that implies that jail is a likely outcome, if they do not accept the prosecutor’s offer of a conviction and probated (no jail) sentence. While it’s occasionally true that severe aggravating circumstances might make jail a likely scenario, my experience is that for first time offenders, that’s unusual.

Another thing I tell my clients in the initial meeting is that it’s the conviction itself that is often the real punishment, not the probation that a judge might give as a likely sentence. I’m not minimizing the time, effort, expense and hassle that probation may cause a person, but the truth is that most of my clients can stay out of trouble for a while, perform some community service, and if necessary, report once a month for a short visit with a probation officer.

But once the judge convicts you, that’s it. No Expunction, no destroying the records, no Motion for Non-Disclosure, no sealing the criminal history. And the conviction follows you around for the rest of your life. So while asking “Am I going to jail?” is a standard and reasonable question from someone facing the “criminal justice system” for the first time, perhaps “Is there anything I can do to get this off my record completely?” would be a more important one.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

I received an email today asking me this question, and it’s a pretty simple one to answer:

Yes, if you are (a) entitled to expunge each of them separately and (b) if the arrests occurred in the same county.

The Texas expunction statute requires that we file your petition to expunge your arrest in the county where you were arrested.  So if, for example, you were arrested for Public Intoxication a long time ago in Austin, and got it dismissed (most commonly by completing a deferred disposition), and then were subsequently arrested for DWI, or Theft, of Marijuana, also in Austin, and it now too qualifies for expunction, we can file one petition.

This greatly reduces the legal fees required to expunge prior criminal history, and I always inquire as to whether a client has other arrests that we can seek to erase.

Unfortunately, if the arrests happened in different counties in Texas, then two different petitions must be filed, two different sets of court costs, and more in attorney’s fees. 

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Within today’s New York Times most emailed articles is this gem: Expunged Criminal Records Live to Tell Tales. It chronicles the difficulties folks have when facing an employer armed with a criminal background check when they have a minor offense on their record, and even when they were granted an expunction.

(R)eal expungement is becoming significantly harder to accomplish in the electronic age. Records once held only in paper form by law enforcement agencies, courts and corrections departments are now routinely digitized and sold in bulk to the private sector.

Some commercial databases now contain more than 100 million criminal records. They are updated only fitfully, and expunged records now often turn up in criminal background checks ordered by employers and landlords.

Just google “criminal background check”, and you’ll find hundreds of private companies willing to sell someone’s criminal history (for a fee, of course).

In Texas, the right to an expunction only accrues to someone who is acquitted, or whose case was dismissed. Sometimes my clients in Austin find themselves arrested for a “minor offense”, where the real punishment potentially comes not from what the judge will give them if they are convicted, but from the lifetime of explaining that DWI, Assault, Theft or Marijuana arrest on their record.

Unfortunately, the Texas Expunction statute only applies to governmental agencies, and does not reach the private companies that gathered the data between arrest and dismissal. I’ll have more soon on expunctions, and what can be done to “erase your criminal history”.

• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

Article 55.01. RIGHT TO EXPUNCTION.

(a) A person who has been placed under a custodial or noncustodial arrest for commission of either a felony or misdemeanor is entitled to have all records and files relating to the arrest expunged if:

            (1) the person is tried for the offense for which the person was arrested and is:                       

               (A) acquitted by the trial court, except as provided by Subsection (c) of this section; or

               (B) convicted and subsequently pardoned; or                           

             (2) each of the following conditions exist:                                  

   (A) an indictment or information charging the person with commission of a felony has not been presented against the person for an offense arising out of the transaction for which the person was arrested or, if an indictment or information charging the person with commission of a felony was presented, the indictment or information has been dismissed or quashed, and:

      (i) the limitations period expired before the date on which a petition for expunction was filed under Article 55.02; or

     (ii) the court finds that the indictment or information was ismissed or quashed because the presentment had been made because of mistake, false nformation, or other similar reason indicating absence of probable cause at the time of the dismissal to believe the person committed the offense or because it was void;

(B) the person has been released and the charge, if any, has not resulted in a final conviction and is no longer pending and there was no court ordered community supervision under Article 42.12 for any offense other than a Class C misdemeanor; and

(C) the person has not been convicted of a felony in the five years preceding the date of the arrest.

(a-1) Notwithstanding Subsection (a)(2)(C), a person's conviction of a felony in the five years preceding the date of the arrest does not affect the person's entitlement to expunction for purposes of an ex parte petition filed on behalf of the person by the director of the Department of Public Safety under Section 2(e), Article 55.02.

(b) Except as provided by Subsection (c) of this section, a district court may expunge all records and files relating to the arrest of a person who has been arrested for commission of a felony or misdemeanor under the procedure established under Article 55.02 of this code if the person is:

            (1) tried for the offense for which the person was arrested;

            (2) convicted of the offense; and

            (3) acquitted by the court of criminal appeals.

(c) A court may not order the expunction of records and files relating to an arrest for an offense for which a person is subsequently acquitted, whether by the trial court or the court of criminal appeals, if the offense for which the person was acquitted arose out of a criminal episode, as defined by Section 3.01, Penal Code, and the person was convicted of or remains subject to prosecution for at least one other offense occurring during the criminal episode.

(d) A person is entitled to have any information that identifies the person, including the person's name, address, date of birth, driver's license number, and social security number, contained in records and files relating to the arrest of another person expunged if:

            (1) the information identifying the person asserting the entitlement to expunction was falsely given by the person arrested as the arrested person's identifying information without the consent of the person asserting the entitlement; and

            (2) the only reason for the information identifying the person asserting the entitlement being contained in the arrest records and files of the person arrested is that the information was falsely given by the person arrested as the arrested person's identifying information.

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks