DWI Jail Sentences

For twenty years, we have been handling DWI and DUI cases. The laws have changed - sometimes severely - but the question we have been asked most frequently has remained the same: Am I going to jail?

That's an understandable question in light of the hell that person has already experienced. Our clients often find it difficult to explain the horror they went through after being arrested and housed in the county jail. The jail personnel, especially in Harris County, seem to take a perverse pleasure in making the jail visit as unpleasant as possible. Their actions sometimes border on the sadistic, and the client who is finally released on bail, fatigued, dehydrated and humiliated, vows never to go back.

The good news is that in the great majority of cases, they won't. We have observed Houston DWI attorneys counsel their clients (and sometimes report in a website), that there is a minimum term of jail that must be satisfied for any conviction of DWI. That is only partly true. The whole truth is this: In Harris and surrounding counties, a person with no prior criminal record and whose drunk driving arrest was not precipitated by an automobile accident will almost always be offered probation without jail time.

More hard truth. It doesn't take a superb, experienced attorney to obtain an offer of probation. In fact, it would probably take more work for an attorney to get their first-timer sentenced to a jail term! So why hire a quality law firm like Stradley, Chernoff & Alford to handle your DWI? If you are a first-timer and all you want to do is plead guilty and accept probation, you probably shouldn't. We aren't paid to plead people guilty. We are paid to win. We represent those who are innocent and others who have far too much to lose if they are convicted. We won't lie or present evidence to a jury we know is false, but we will do everything humanly possible to see to it that the prosecution fails to secure their conviction.

Contact us online or call our office 713-489-2358 to find out how we can help you start building a sound DWI/DUI defense that will keep you out of jail.