Can a DWI Be Dismissed in Texas?

Yes — DWI Cases Are Dismissed in Texas Courts Regularly

A DWI charge in Texas is not a guaranteed conviction. The Hull Firm has dismissed hundreds of DWI cases in Travis County and surrounding courts. The most common grounds are a traffic stop that lacked legal justification, field sobriety tests improperly administered, and BAC evidence that does not meet the technical requirements for admissibility. Every Austin DWI case we take receives the same systematic challenge across all three layers.

Ground 1: The Traffic Stop Lacked Reasonable Suspicion

Every DWI begins with a traffic stop. Under Rodriguez v. United States (575 U.S. 348, 2015) and Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 38.23, a stop must be based on specific, articulable facts that a traffic violation or criminal activity occurred. If the officer did not have a legally sufficient basis for the stop — or if they extended the stop beyond its original purpose without independent suspicion — everything discovered after that point is suppressible. No stop means no DWI investigation, no breath test, no case.

APD officers on I-35, MoPac, 6th Street, and Rainey Street conduct high-volume DWI enforcement. We pull dashcam footage the day we are retained and compare it against the officer's written report. The gap between what the camera shows and what the report says is where many Travis County DWI cases are won.

Ground 2: Field Sobriety Tests Improperly Administered

The HGN, Walk and Turn, and One Leg Stand tests must be administered in strict compliance with NHTSA-standardized protocols. The officer must be currently certified. Instructions must be given exactly as specified. The surface must be reasonably level and safe. Austin street conditions — cracked sidewalks on 6th Street, I-35 shoulder traffic, parking lot surfaces near bars — frequently affect test validity.

We request the officer's SFST certification records and compare every clue observed against the video of the actual test administration. Deviations from protocol can make the results inadmissible or at minimum highly contestable in front of a Travis County jury.

Ground 3: BAC Evidence Fails Technical Requirements

A BAC number from an Intoxilyzer 9000 breath test or a Travis County ME blood draw is only admissible if the underlying process meets specific legal and scientific requirements. Maintenance logs, calibration records, operator certifications, the 15-minute observation period, chain of custody from blood draw through lab analysis — all are obtainable through open records and all are challengeable.

Improperly preserved blood samples can ferment after collection, producing additional ethanol not present at the time of the draw. A machine with a lapsed calibration or an operator without a current certification produces results that cannot carry the weight the prosecution needs.

What Happens After a Dismissal — Expungement

A dismissed DWI charge does not automatically disappear from your record. The arrest remains visible on background checks until a Travis County court issues a formal expunction order under Texas Chapter 55. We evaluate expungement eligibility on every dismissed case we handle and file the petition as soon as you qualify. A dismissal followed by expungement means the arrest is legally destroyed — you can answer “no” on most applications that ask about criminal history. Learn more on our expungement page.

What About No Deferred Adjudication?

Texas law prohibits deferred adjudication for DWI, which means a plea is a permanent conviction with no probationary path to dismissal. This makes fighting the case toward an outright dismissal — not negotiating a favorable plea — the correct strategy on every first-time DWI in Austin. A plea that avoids additional jail time still produces a permanent conviction with no record-clearing path.