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Tex. Penal Code § 49.04

DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED

Applied in 448 court decisions — leading case Gigliobianco v. State (2006)

Most recently applied in Wooten v. Lumpkin (August 2024)

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff

How often courts cite this section

19952000201020202024340
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 the person is intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place.

(b) Except as provided by Subsections (c), (d), and (e) and Section 49.09, an offense under this section is a Class B misdemeanor, with a minimum term of confinement of 72 hours.

(c) If it is shown on the trial of an offense under this section that at the time of the offense the person operating the motor vehicle had an open container of alcohol in the person's immediate possession, the offense is a Class B misdemeanor, with a minimum term of confinement of six days.

(d) If it is shown on the trial of an offense under this section that an analysis of a specimen of the person's blood, breath, or urine showed an alcohol concentration level of 0.15 or more at the time the analysis was performed, the offense is a Class A misdemeanor.

(e) If it is shown on the trial of an offense under this section that at the time of the offense the person was operating the motor vehicle in a school crossing zone during the time the reduced speed limit applies to the zone, the offense is a state jail felony. In this subsection, "school crossing zone" has the meaning assigned by Section 541.302, Transportation Code.

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