Most serious sex crime accusations in Houston are felonies, and the prison range is only part of it. Most felony sex offense convictions carry sex offender registration, and so does deferred adjudication for those same offenses, and for the most serious ones that registration lasts for life. That’s why these cases have to be fought from the first day, often before charges are filed, and why the first thing we tell people is not to talk to a detective until they’ve talked to us.
Call (713) 664-4000. Everything you tell us is confidential, and if a detective has asked you to come in or call back, that conversation should happen through a lawyer.
In Harris County, every one of these cases runs through the same place. Whether the investigation came from Houston police or a county agency, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office decides the charge, and felony sex cases are heard in the district courts at the Criminal Justice Center at 1201 Franklin in downtown Houston. A lot of them start months before any arrest, with a detective’s call or a request to come in and “tell your side,” and what happens in that window often decides the case.
Sex offenses we defend in Houston
| Charge | Statute | Usual level |
|---|---|---|
| Sexual assault | Penal Code § 22.011 | Second-degree felony, 2 to 20 years |
| Aggravated sexual assault | § 22.021 | First-degree felony, 5 to 99 years or life, with a 25-year minimum in some child cases |
| Continuous sexual abuse of a young child | § 21.02 | First-degree felony, 25 to 99 years or life |
| Indecency with a child | § 21.11 | Second-degree felony for contact, third-degree for exposure |
| Online solicitation of a minor | § 33.021 | Second-degree felony if it involves soliciting a meeting. Third-degree for sexually explicit messages alone, second-degree if the minor is, or is believed to be, under 14 |
| Possession of child pornography | § 43.26 | Third-degree felony, rising to first-degree based on the number of images or the content |
| Indecent assault (sexual touching or exposure without penetration) | § 22.012 | Class A misdemeanor, with felony versions for repeat offenses, certain health care providers, civilly committed offenders, and elderly or disabled victims |
| Solicitation of prostitution (the buyer) | § 43.021 | State jail felony, second-degree if the person is under 18 |
| Prostitution (the seller) | § 43.02 | Class B misdemeanor, rising with prior convictions |
| Unlawful disclosure of intimate visual material | § 21.16 | State jail felony |
| Voyeurism | § 21.17 | Class A misdemeanor, state jail felony with a prior conviction or when the person watched was under 18 |
| Indecent exposure | § 21.08 | Class B misdemeanor, rising with prior convictions |
| Failure to comply with sex offender registration | Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 62.102 | State jail felony to second-degree felony depending on the registration requirement, and one level higher with a prior failure-to-register conviction |
Sources: Penal Code chapters 21, 22, 33 and 43; Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 62.102. In most child sex offenses, the child’s consent is not a defense and not knowing the child’s age is no excuse, with narrow exceptions for people close in age, and our page on the age of consent in Texas explains where those lines fall. Texas also has no crime called rape or statutory rape. Those cases are charged as sexual assault or sexual assault of a child, and our pages on rape charges and statutory rape explain how.
Registration is often the real sentence
Sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child, continuous sexual abuse, child pornography and several other offenses are “reportable” under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 62.001(5). That list includes deferred adjudication, so a plea that ends in a dismissal can still put you on the registry. For the offenses the law calls sexually violent, committed by someone 17 or older, the duty to register lasts for life under Art. 62.101(a), and the same is true for child pornography. Registration means reporting to local law enforcement and updating your address every time you move. Someone with more than one sexually violent offense has to verify every 90 days under Art. 62.058.
Missing any registration requirement is its own felony under Art. 62.102. We defend those cases too, and they’re often about a move nobody explained or a verification date that got missed.
So before anyone talks about a plea, the first question is whether it carries registration. A plea to a different offense that doesn’t can matter more than the difference between two prison ranges. There’s also a narrow exemption from registration under Art. 62.301 for some close-in-age cases.
How these cases get built
Most sex crime cases don’t start with physical evidence. They start with an accusation, and the investigation builds around it. In a child case that usually means a forensic interview at a children’s advocacy center, and the first adult the child told becomes the “outcry witness” whose account can come in at trial under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 38.072. In child sex cases, Art. 38.37 also lets the State put on evidence of other alleged acts, which is why these trials often turn on more than the single incident charged.
In adult cases, it’s usually the complainant’s statement and whatever is on the phones. Detectives regularly set up a pretext call, where the complainant calls you while police listen and record, hoping you’ll apologize for something or say something that sounds like one. Online stings work the other way, with an officer posing as a minor or a sex worker.
If you’re under investigation, the most useful thing you can do is stop talking about it with anyone (texts count) and call us. Pre-charge work is where a lot of these cases are decided. We can put information in front of the prosecutor or the grand jury before an indictment, and we can make sure evidence that helps you, like messages and location data, gets preserved before it disappears.
How we defend sex crime charges
Consent. In an adult case, the State has to prove the act happened without consent, and § 22.011(b) lists the specific circumstances that count. Messages from before and after often say more about consent than the police report does. Our page on the evidence in a sexual assault case goes through what the State needs.
False and mistaken accusations. Some accusations are false. They come up in custody fights and after breakups. Others are sincere but wrong about who did it. Either way, the timeline, the complainant’s earlier statements, the phone records and the forensic results get compared line by line.
The forensic evidence. A sexual assault exam that shows no injury, or DNA that doesn’t match, can change a case, and so can a lab that never tested what it should have. Jay Blass Cohen is an ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist and knows how to take apart a lab report.
Sting cases and entrapment. Entrapment under Penal Code § 8.06 is a defense when police induced you to commit the offense using persuasion likely to cause people to commit it. Simply giving someone the opportunity isn’t entrapment, so these cases usually turn on the chat logs: who raised what, and when.
Suppression. A phone searched without a valid warrant, or a statement taken in custody without warnings, can be kept out of evidence. In cases built on a phone and a statement, that can be the whole case.
Results in sex crime cases
A Harris County jury found our client not guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a young child, a charge that carries 25 years to life (tried with co-counsel). We also got a Harris County charge of unlawful disclosure of intimate visual material dismissed. See more of our case results. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Accused of a sex crime in Houston? Call Blass Law
Jay Blass Cohen has defended people in Houston since 2009 and has never worked for the prosecution. He’s an ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, a certified instructor in the field sobriety tests, a certified Drug Recognition Expert, and a Governor-appointed member of the Texas Indigent Defense Commission. We handle these cases discreetly, and we’ll tell you on the first call what we think the State has and what we’d do next.
Call (713) 664-4000. If you’ve been contacted by a detective, call us before you call them back.
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.