Although drinking is illegal for young men and women under the age of 21, the reality is quite different. Often kids are drinking and getting drunk as early as their middle school years – and you can be sure that drinking is a problem on campuses around the country including our own state of Texas where the average age range of students is 17 to 21.
If your child is facing charges for underage drinking and driving, it’s crucial to understand their legal rights and options. Contact Houston DWI attorney David A. Breston at (713) 804-6492 or fill out our online form for a free consultation.
According to Texas law, the presence of any amount of alcohol in a minor’s bloodstream is a legal offense and the individual is subject to any number of court actions. For instance, the minor may be required to relinquish their driver’s license for up to 2 months. In addition, he or she may subject to fines of up to $500 for a first offense.
Additional punitive measures may include forced participation in an alcohol education class and upwards of forty hours of community service such as speaking to other teens about the dangers of drinking and driving or simply visiting individuals who sustained grievous injuries as a result of a DWI.
Getting arrested for underage drinking and driving in Texas can come with more than one charge. Prosecutors may file both DUI and DWI charges depending on your blood alcohol concentration (BAC), your age, and whether any damage or injury occurred. If you are unsure how these charges work together, it helps to understand how they are used and when they might overlap.
Minors in Texas can be charged with DUI for having any detectable amount of alcohol in their system while driving. However, if their blood alcohol concentration is 0.08% or higher, they may also face DWI charges, which carry more serious penalties. These are two separate charges that apply based on the evidence collected at the scene.
Prosecutors might move forward with both charges if the incident involved property damage, an accident, or another driver or passenger was hurt. When your BAC is close to or above the legal limit, and there is another concern like reckless behavior or a crash, they may pursue a combination of DUI and DWI. That can lead to a more aggressive case under Texas Penal Code § 49.04.
Getting charged with DUI as a minor is serious on its own, but certain details can make things worse. If you have prior convictions, refused to take a test, or there was an accident, prosecutors may be more likely to seek enhanced charges or stack DUI and DWI together. These cases can move fast, especially if someone else was hurt.
If the facts include broken bones, serious injuries, or reckless driving, the court may allow prosecutors to pursue both charges. That is especially true when a minor has a prior record or the incident triggered more than one concern. These situations are commonly handled under Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code § 106.041.
A DUI charge for someone under 21 might seem like a temporary issue, but the effects can stick around for years. Even a first-time offense can show up on background checks and make it harder to move forward with school or work goals. If your child or teen is dealing with an underage DUI, it helps to know what might follow them into adulthood. Common long-term effects of an underage DUI charge may include:
A charge that starts during your teenage years can carry real-world consequences well into adulthood. While some records may be eligible for sealing, that process is not automatic. In other cases, you may qualify for expunction, which can remove certain offenses from your criminal record entirely. Under Texas Family Code § 58.003, certain juvenile records can be sealed under the right conditions, but timing, eligibility, and follow-through matter.
Often today’s youth are unaware that they can find themselves in trouble with the law just for having alcohol in their possession. Punishments are similar to those of a DWI.
If a minor male or female is stopped for a suspected DWI and his or her blood alcohol content level is at the legal limit for intoxication (or higher) then the punishments meted outgrow exponentially. Fines can increase up to $2000 and driving privileges may be suspended for anywhere from 3 months to an entire year.
If arrested for a DUI, the minor is looking at jail time which could be serious. He or she could be sentenced to six days at the least and as much as 6 months in more serious cases. Of course, this also depends on what level of punishment the crime warrants in the eyes of the judge.
Finally, there are other extenuating circumstances that can increase the amount of legal trouble a minor faces in the case of a DWI. For instance, if the minor was driving while intoxicated and had a child in the car then the severity of the sentence can be expected to increase. In fact, if a minor is convicted of a DUI and a child under the age of 15 was a passenger then he or she could be confined to prison for up to 2 years and fined up to ten thousand dollars.
If the minor caused bodily injury or death to another individual as a result of their drunk driving behavior then jail terms could reach 10 to 20 years and although fines may be capped at $10,000 by the court – expect civil suits to follow. For minors who were thinking of obtaining their commercial driver’s license in the future will have to wait a bit longer till they can attempt to obtain their CDL.
However, it is only when a ‘minor’ is stopped by police for suspected drinking and driving that the expertise of a Houston DUI attorney is required. You see, for adults, the legal limit for alcohol content in the blood is 0.08% but for the ‘under-21 crowd’, there is zero-tolerance for any level of alcohol in the blood system. Contact a Houston underage DUI attorney today at the Law Office of David A. Breston.
Parents, remind your minors often not to drink and drive. If you have more questions about juvenile DWIs, speak to our Houston juvenile defense lawyers today.