Burnet County ALR Hearing Guide

Fifteen days. That's the entire window a Burnet County driver has to request a hearing contesting a license suspension after a DWI arrest, and it starts running from the date of arrest, not from whenever the paperwork gets sorted out. In rural Burnet County, where public transit is close to nonexistent, losing that window means losing driving privileges outright, with real consequences for employment and housing.

What happens the night of the arrest

A breath or blood result over 0.08%, or a refusal to test, triggers an immediate administrative action separate from the criminal case. The officer takes the physical license and issues a DIC-25, the Notice of Suspension and Temporary Driving Permit, which is a fully valid license in its own right for the time being.

Miss the deadline, lose the fight automatically

If the hearing request doesn't reach Texas DPS within 15 days, the right to contest the suspension is gone for good, and the suspension takes effect automatically, typically on the 40th day after the arrest. There's no appeal for missing the window itself.

The hearing itself, now mostly remote

The State Office of Administrative Hearings runs these as a neutral third party, and most now happen over Zoom or by phone rather than in person. DPS has to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the stop was justified, the arrest had probable cause, and the driver either refused or failed the test.

Why defense attorneys request it even expecting to lose

The hearing is a rare early chance to put the arresting deputy, officer, or trooper under oath and cross-examine them, months before the criminal trial even gets underway. Locking in their account of the stop and the field sobriety testing early, on the record, often exposes weaknesses the defense can use later.