3rd DUI while on felony parole in Texas

[FlyingRon]

As mentioned above, a DWI 3rd or more is a 3rd degree felony punishable up to 10 years in prison. If their parole gets revoked before the new DWI is resolved, however, then that prior charge can be used as an enhancement making the possible punishment up to 20 years.

That can only happen if the prior was also a felony (and not a state jail felony). I suspect that this wasn't the case for a 2nd DUI.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

That can only happen if the prior was also a felony (and not a state jail felony).

The poster stated that they were on parole at the time of the new charge. There is no such thing as parole for a state jail felony so I concluded that it was a "true" felony.

I suspect that this wasn't the case for a 2nd DUI.

DUI is a charge used for minors. I'm sure you mean DWI. A DWI 2nd is a misdemeanor under any circumstance. The only state jail DWI charge that we have in Texas is DWI with child passenger. The statutory name for a felony DWI is actually DWI 3rd or more. It can be your 11th DWI and the charge still reads DWI 3rd or more. So the fact that this person is currently charged with DWI 3rd doesn't mean that their last one was their 2nd, and based on the information that the poster gave us we don't know if they were even on parole for a DWI charge or some other felony.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

Alas, the above is not true in Texas if they have served more than half of the underlying sentence (including time on parole). It appears based on the poster's comments that she "only had three months to go" that she probably had. In this case, Texas caps the time on the revocation to the time remaining (after subtracting the time on parole).

In this case the result is probably the same but nevertheless that is not quite correct. It is irrelevant whether you have served half of your total sentence, with or without parole. What matters is whether you have served half of your total parole period and that only determines whether you get credit for that parole or "street time" against your sentence. It is entirely common for someone to serve more than half of their total sentence and still not get credit for their street time, leaving them years to serve on a revocation. For example consider if someone got sentenced to 20 years in prison and paroled after 4 (more common than you'd think.) They have 16 years of parole to serve. They get revoked after 7 years on parole. They have served a total of 11 years against a 20 so more than 50% of their sentence. But they completed less than half of their parole period so they may not get that 7 years credit. They are looking at potentially going back to prison for 16 years.

There is also the huge caveat that there is a long list of offenses or enhancements for which you never get your street time even if you get revoked on your very last day of parole. Unless I'm misreading the original poster, we don't know what offense this person was on parole for.

 

[quincy]

Thank you for explaining the way it works in Texas, CavemanLawyer. It is always an education to read your posts.

 

[FlyingRon]

There is also the huge caveat that there is a long list of offenses or enhancements for which you never get your street time even if you get revoked on your very last day of parole. Unless I'm misreading the original poster, we don't know what offense this person was on parole for.

The sense was that it was for the SECOND DUI offense. But I could be wrong. Thanks for the clarifications.