What Happens at an ALR Hearing in Texas?

An administrative license revocation (ALR) hearing is your one chance to stop the license suspension that DPS starts the moment you are arrested for DWI. It runs on a separate track from the criminal case, in front of a different judge, under a lower burden of proof, and it does not replace anything that happens in criminal court.

Your 15-day window to request this hearing may still be open, and in a blood case it often has not started yet. Our Houston ALR hearing lawyer can file the request today. Call (713) 664-4000.

At the hearing, your Houston DWI lawyer puts the arresting officer under oath and makes him account for how the stop and the arrest were handled. Because of the directness of the questioning and who has to sit for it, ALR hearings are often gold mines for discovery and testimony in the criminal case.

What Is the Purpose of an ALR Hearing?

Two purposes, and the second one is the reason to request the hearing even in a case that looks hard.

The first is the obvious one: keeping your license. DPS has to prove its case, and if the administrative law judge finds it did not, there is no suspension.

The second is evidence. The ALR hearing usually happens months before anything moves in the criminal case, and it is the earliest opportunity to get the arresting officer on the record, under oath, before he has read his own report a dozen more times. What he says there is locked in.

These hearings arise when DPS moves to suspend your license because you either refused to give a breath or blood specimen, or gave one that came back at 0.08 or higher.

You can refuse. Transportation Code § 724.013 says a specimen may not be taken if you refuse, apart from the mandatory-draw situations in § 724.012(b). Before asking, the officer has to warn you orally and in writing under § 724.015 that a refusal can be used against you in a prosecution and will cost you your license. Refusing is a choice with a price, not a loophole, and the suspension for refusing is longer than the one for failing.

What Questions Get Decided at a Texas ALR Hearing?

A narrow list, and knowing it is most of the preparation. The State Office of Administrative Hearings publishes the issues it decides.

If you refused to give a specimen:

• Was there reasonable suspicion for the officer to stop you?
• Was there probable cause to believe you were intoxicated?
• Were you offered the opportunity to give a breath or blood specimen?
• Did you refuse?

If you gave a specimen and it came back over the limit:

• Was there reasonable suspicion for the stop?
• Was there probable cause to believe you were intoxicated?
• Were you offered the opportunity to give a specimen?
• Was your alcohol concentration above the legal limit?

Everything a DWI case usually fights about, the science, the field sobriety scoring, the timing of the draw, matters here only to the extent it bears on those questions. The two that carry the most weight are the first two, because a stop without reasonable suspicion takes the whole thing down.

The issues are different for drivers under 21, for commercial drivers, and for boating cases.

How Do ALR Hearings Function?

DPS is represented by its own attorney. The administrative law judge will not appoint one for you, and nobody in the room is going to explain the process while it is happening. You may represent yourself. Very few people who do it come out ahead.

Jay Blass Cohen is a certified practitioner and instructor of Standardized Field Sobriety Testing, which matters at an ALR hearing more than most people expect, because the officer is describing tests he was trained to administer a specific way and is being questioned by someone who teaches them.

What gets examined:

• Whether the officer had a lawful reason to stop the car in the first place
• How the field sobriety tests were administered, clue by clue, against the manual
• Whether the statutory warnings were given before the specimen was requested
• What the officer wrote in his report versus what the video shows and what he says on the stand

The judge weighs the evidence and issues a ruling. If DPS does not carry its burden, your license is not suspended.

How Long Do You Have to Request a Hearing?

Fifteen days from the day you receive the notice of suspension. Not fifteen days from the arrest, and the difference decides cases.

In a breath-test case the officer usually hands you the notice at the station, so the two dates are the same and the shorthand happens to work. In a blood case they are usually not the same. The specimen has to go to a lab, the result is rarely back before you are released, so DPS mails the notice later, and under Transportation Code § 524.013(b) that notice is considered received on the fifth day after it is mailed. Your fifteen days run from there. DPS says the same thing on its own hearing request form: in blood failure cases the request should not be submitted until the notice of suspension arrives.

So if you were arrested a month ago on a blood draw and you assume the deadline is gone, it very likely is not. That assumption is the single most common reason people who still had a live ALR case never called anybody.

The statutes: § 524.031 for specimen cases, § 724.041(a) for refusals. Both run fifteen days from receipt of notice, or from the date notice is presumed received.

The temporary driving permit you were handed is good until the suspension takes effect, which is the fortieth day after you receive notice under § 724.035(c) and § 524.021(a). Request the hearing inside the window and the permit stays valid until the hearing happens.

DPS takes hearing requests through an online form that asks for your license number, name, date of birth, address and phone, plus the arrest date, the officer’s name and agency, and whether you refused or failed. Expect 30 to 60 days for a hearing to be scheduled.

Miss the deadline and there is no hearing, and the suspension takes effect on day 40. That is not the end of your ability to drive. An occupational driver’s license is still available, and it is worth asking about the same week rather than after the suspension has already cost you a job.

Does Losing the ALR Hearing Hurt My Criminal Case?

No, and the statute says so directly. Under Transportation Code § 724.048, the decision of DPS or the administrative law judge is a civil matter, is independent of and not an estoppel as to any issue in the criminal case, and does not preclude litigating the same or similar facts in the criminal prosecution.

Read that as permission. An adverse ALR ruling does not bind the criminal court, does not come in as proof of anything, and does not stop us from arguing the identical suppression issue to a judge who can dismiss the case. Meanwhile the officer’s sworn testimony from the ALR hearing is ours to keep. That asymmetry is why we request the hearing in nearly every case.

What If the ALR Hearing Does Not Go in My Favor?

You can appeal. Under Transportation Code § 524.041, the petition has to be filed no later than the 30th day after the administrative law judge’s decision becomes final, and no motion for rehearing is required first. It goes in the county court at law in the county where you were arrested. A copy, certified by the clerk, has to go by certified mail to both DPS and the State Office of Administrative Hearings at their Austin headquarters. The same chapter governs appeals in refusal cases through § 724.047.

The part worth knowing before you decide: § 524.042 stays the suspension when you file the appeal, but only if your license has not been suspended for an alcohol or drug enforcement contact in the preceding five years and you have no qualifying conviction in the preceding ten. The stay lasts up to 90 days. For a first-time driver that can mean keeping your license while the appeal is pending, which is often the whole point of filing.

How Long Will the Suspension Remain on My License?

It turns on whether you refused or failed, and on whether you have a prior alcohol or drug related enforcement contact in the ten years before the arrest.

Situation	Suspension	Statute
Refused, no prior enforcement contact in 10 years	180 days	§ 724.035(a)
Refused, one or more prior enforcement contacts in 10 years	2 years	§ 724.035(b)
Failed, no prior enforcement contact in 10 years	90 days	§ 524.022(a)(1)
Failed, one or more prior enforcement contacts in 10 years	1 year	§ 524.022(a)(2)

Note what the trigger is. It is an enforcement contact within ten years, not a conviction, and not “first offense” in the way people usually mean it. An old suspension you had forgotten about can double the number.

And the license does not come back by itself when the period ends. SOAH is explicit about this: reinstatement requires following the instructions DPS sends, which generally means a reinstatement fee and an SR-22 filing. People lose weeks assuming the clock did the work for them.

What Are the Consequences of Losing My Texas Driver’s License?

Beyond the obvious one, a suspension reaches further than people expect:

• Commercial drivers face consequences to current and future employment that a personal license suspension does not carry
• You cannot register a car in Texas without a valid license
• Insurance goes up, and an SR-22 filing is required for two years from the date of conviction if the criminal case ends in one
• You may need a Texas identification card to have any government photo ID at all
• Getting caught driving on a suspended license is its own criminal offense, with fines and possible jail

How Do You Win an ALR Hearing, and How Likely Is It?

Straight answer: the deck is tilted toward DPS, and most unrepresented drivers lose. But winning an ALR hearing means more than a favorable ruling. Even when the suspension stands, the hearing is where we lock the arresting officer into sworn testimony, expose a bad stop, and pull the State’s evidence months before the criminal trial. Drivers who request the hearing and put a lawyer on it come out ahead far more often than those who walk in alone. For the full strategy, and the 15-day deadline to request one, see our Houston ALR hearing lawyer page.

Reach Out to an ALR Hearing Attorney at Blass Law to Get Started

The clock on this one runs whether or not anybody tells you it is running, and unlike most deadlines in a criminal case, nothing fixes it afterward.

If you were arrested for DWI in Harris County, call Blass Law at (713) 664-4000. We will work out which clock you are actually on, which is not always the one you think, file the request, and go to the hearing prepared to make the officer explain himself.