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Tex. Penal Code § 38.03

RESISTING ARREST, SEARCH, OR TRANSPORTATION

Applied in 99 court decisions — leading case State v. Wiegmann (1998)

Most recently applied in Benfer v. City of Baytown (November 2024)

Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, Sec. 1, eff

How often courts cite this section

197519801990200020102020202460
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally prevents or obstructs a person he knows is a peace officer or a person acting in a peace officer's presence and at his direction from effecting an arrest, search, or transportation of the actor or another by using force against the peace officer or another.

(b) It is no defense to prosecution under this section that the arrest or search was unlawful.

(c) Except as provided in Subsection (d), an offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

(d) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree if the actor uses a deadly weapon to resist the arrest or search.

Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.