Montgomery County is one of the toughest places in Texas to be charged with DWI, and the District Attorney’s office does not treat that as a criticism.
They’ll tell you so themselves. Their office publishes that DWI is “the number one crime committed in the County.” They run a dedicated Vehicular Crimes Unit that responds to fatal crash scenes alongside police and prosecutes every charge that comes out of them. And their No Refusal blood-warrant program, which they describe as a national model recognized by the NHTSA, exists for one purpose: to make sure that refusing a breath test doesn’t stop them from getting your blood.
That’s the office on the other side of your case. It is not an office looking for a reason to let this go, which is why the first two weeks matter so much here.
It doesn’t matter whether you were stopped in Conroe, Magnolia, Willis or the Montgomery County side of The Woodlands. (Creekside Park is Harris County, and that’s a different courthouse.) Every DWI in Montgomery County is prosecuted by the same office and heard in the same Conroe courthouses.
Call Blass Law at (713) 664-4000.
How We Work a Montgomery County DWI
An aggressive prosecutor’s office still has to prove its case, and that obligation doesn’t soften just because the county takes DWI personally.
So we take the file apart. Was there a lawful basis for pulling you over in the first place, or something constructed to justify it later? Had probable cause actually developed before the arrest decision got made? If a breath instrument produced a number, was that machine maintained and was it operated by someone trained to operate it? If a warrant produced blood, did the affidavit rest on real facts, was the person drawing it qualified and following protocol, was the vial stored right, and can the State trace it through every set of hands that touched it?
Weaknesses in any of those change what happens next: motions granted, evidence kept out, charges lowered, cases dropped. And when the proof is shaky and the risk profile works for you, we set it for trial. Juries in Texas have returned not guilty verdicts on our DWI cases, and Montgomery County prosecutors are not immune to that possibility.
Diversion exists here and we’ll pursue it when it’s the best available result. But in this county the door is narrow, and treating it as the opening position would be a mistake. Anyone can submit paperwork to a program. What moves a prosecutor is a lawyer who’s ready to make the State prove every element, and in a county this serious about DWI enforcement, that’s often the only thing standing between a client and a conviction.
Where Your Montgomery County DWI Case Goes
A DWI arrest anywhere in Montgomery County is prosecuted by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, currently led by District Attorney Mike Holley. The office sits at 207 W. Phillips Street, 2nd Floor, Conroe.
Misdemeanor DWI, a first offense (Class B, or Class A if the test came back 0.15 or higher) or a second offense (Class A), goes to one of Montgomery County’s three county criminal courts: County Court at Law No. 1, No. 4, or No. 5, all at 210 W. Davis Street in Conroe. Those three courts see DWIs every day, and the prosecutors assigned to them know the playbook.
Felony DWI, whether it’s a third offense, a DWI with a child passenger, intoxication assault or intoxication manslaughter, goes to one of Montgomery County’s five criminal district courts: the 9th, 221st, 359th, 435th, or the new 523rd, which opened September 1, 2026. The four longer-standing courts sit at 207 W. Phillips Street, the same building as the DA’s office.
Most people booked on a Montgomery County DWI end up at the Montgomery County Jail at 1 Criminal Justice Drive, Conroe.
The No Refusal Program: Refusing Doesn’t End It
Montgomery County runs a TxDOT-funded No Refusal program on weekends and holidays, and on other dates the office picks. NHTSA adopted it as a model for other jurisdictions. When you refuse during one of those operations:
- An officer arrests you for DWI. You refuse the breath test.
- The officer calls an on-duty prosecutor, who drafts a blood search warrant.
- An on-call judge reviews it for probable cause.
- If the judge signs it, an investigator serves the warrant and a nurse draws your blood, over your objection.
The program covers Lake Conroe too, where it applies to Boating While Intoxicated.
So refusing just changes how the State gets its evidence. They take your blood on a warrant instead of your breath at the station. But a warrant can be challenged. It has to establish probable cause, and the draw has to follow protocol. Labs make mistakes too. That’s where the case gets fought, and it’s the first place we look.
Who Arrested You
Most DWI arrests inside Conroe city limits are made by the Conroe Police Department (2300 Plantation Drive, Conroe). Outside the city, it’s usually the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office or a county constable, and Texas DPS troopers work I-45 and Highway 105. The DA’s own Vehicular Crimes Unit, which responds to fatal crash scenes and runs the No Refusal program, can be involved too.
Regardless of who put the handcuffs on, a DWI inside Montgomery County is prosecuted by the Montgomery County DA in Conroe.
You Have 15 Days to Save Your License, and It’s a Separate Case
Your driver’s license suspension runs on its own track, a civil proceeding called Administrative License Revocation (ALR), run by the Texas Department of Public Safety and heard by the State Office of Administrative Hearings.
How long you have depends on what happened at the station. A refusal or a failed breath test starts a fifteen-day clock running from the day the notice was placed in your hand. If they drew blood and the results came back weeks later, you get twenty days, measured from the day DPS mailed the notice. Miss that window and you lose the hearing, and the suspension kicks in on the fortieth day.
What it costs if you let it go: 180 days for a first refusal, 90 for a first failed test (60 if you’re under 21), longer if you’ve been through this before, and a $125 fee to get the license reinstated.
Request it on time and two things follow. Your license stays valid while the matter is pending. And we can subpoena the arresting officer and put him under oath months ahead of trial, which gives us a preview of the State’s theory of the case taken while it’s still being assembled. Facing an office that prepares DWI cases this thoroughly, getting that preview early matters, and what we learn there shapes how we attack the criminal case.
Fifteen days is not very long. Call before they’re gone.
Diversion in Montgomery County: A Narrow Door, Not a Locked One
If the fight can’t get you all the way and trial isn’t the right risk, Montgomery County does offer pre-trial diversion: you complete a contract, and the charge gets dismissed. If you qualify, the program runs one year and requires an ignition interlock on your vehicle.
But the DA’s office describes diversion in writing as “an extraordinary remedy,” and says plainly that “not every defendant is entitled to consideration.” Their published policy lists the things that disqualify you:
- You refused to give a breath or blood sample
- There was a crash, “no matter how minor”
- Someone was injured
- Your breath or blood test came back high, usually 0.15 or more
- You have any history of alcohol or drug abuse, including an old Minor in Possession or Public Intoxication
- You refused to cooperate with police, or mistreated officers, first responders or medical staff
Read that list and it’s easy to conclude you’re finished over a fender-bender or a college MIP. On paper, any one of those ends the conversation. In practice, it doesn’t. The same policy says diversion is granted at the DA’s discretion, and prosecutors make exceptions. They make them for people whose lawyer showed up with a reason, in writing and early. A 0.15 that won’t survive a hard look at the lab work, or a “crash” that turns out to be a curb, is an argument. People who read the list and give up never get that conversation. The work that makes the DA take a dismissal argument seriously is the same work that gets diversion a second look, so the fight and the fallback aren’t really separate.
Why Blass Law for a Montgomery County DWI
Jay Blass Cohen has defended DWI cases since 2009. Two credentials matter here specifically: the American Chemical Society’s ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist designation, covering the chemistry and instrumentation behind alcohol and drug testing, and certification as a practitioner and instructor in Standardized Field Sobriety Testing.
That matters against this office because Montgomery County builds DWI cases on scientific evidence and puts analysts on the stand to defend it. When the State’s witness explains why a number is trustworthy, the question is whether anyone at the defense table can evaluate that claim, or whether it goes unchallenged. Jay teaches the roadside tests. He understands what the lab did and where it can go wrong.
We are trial lawyers, and we have taken DWI cases to verdict and won.
Talk to a Montgomery County DWI Lawyer Today
Montgomery County is not a place to improvise. Call Blass Law at (713) 664-4000 for a confidential case evaluation.
Reviewed by Jay Blass Cohen, founder of Blass Law PLLC, ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, certified Drug Recognition Expert, and SFST instructor, serving Houston since 2009. This article is general information, not legal advice for your situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.