DWI With Multiple Child Passengers - Part 1

 Posted on April 24, 2024 in DUI/DWI

A Texas DWI arrest with multiple child passengers in the vehicle is a very serious matter. When the DWI offense involves a child passenger in the vehicle that the defendant driver was operating when arrested on the DWI, Texas criminal law enhances the typical first-offense DWI charge from a simple Class B misdemeanor all the way to a state jail felony. A Texas DWI with a child passenger is a felony, not a misdemeanor, crime.

Felony DWI charges involving child passengers can have other serious collateral consequences. Those collateral consequences can include driver's license administrative suspension and potential effects on professional licenses and employment. But the collateral consequences of a DWI with child passengers can also include potentially affecting child custody.

Having multiple child passengers in the vehicle and at risk of injury can further complicate the felony DWI with child passenger charge. If you face a Texas DWI with child passenger charge, including a charge involving multiple child passengers, retain premier Houston, TX DWI defense attorney Doug Murphy for the best possible outcome to the criminal charges and related proceedings.

DWI Arrests of Parents With Multiple Children 

Parents who have more than one child naturally have good reason to have more than one child in their vehicle. Families with multiple children often transport those children together, whether to school, for recreational activities, on errands, for medical examination and treatment, and for a host of other reasons. Some of those activities can be social, including where the parents eat and drink. A parent may even imbibe alcohol or ingest another intoxicant on one of those occasions, such as a sporting event where the forum serves beer or a social gathering where the host makes wine or mixed drinks available.

Parents also take prescription medication and other drugs and even use cannabis or derivatives therapeutically or recreationally. Any of these entirely innocent or relatively innocent activities could result in suspicions and a DWI arrest. All that a parent with multiple children in the vehicle has to do to potentially suffer a traffic stop and DWI arrest is to make a driving mistake like failing to signal, excessive speed, or crossing the centerline. Parents with multiple children in the vehicle can suffer felony DWI arrest, even without obvious recklessness around drinking and driving.

Contact a Houston, TX DWI With Multiple Child Passengers Attorney

If you were arrested for DWI with multiple children in your vehicle, you can rely on Harris County, TX  felony DWI attorney Doug Murphy’s experience to bring you the best possible result. Attorney Murphy is particularly skilled in helping parents who were accused of DWI while transporting their own children. Contact us at 713-229-8333 for a complimentary consultation.