Missed It By That Much

I should know better than to get my hopes up.

Yesterday morning, my client’s DWI was set for a pretrial conference. That’s the last setting before a contested pretrial motions hearing in Travis County. But it doesn’t get set for pretrial motions until the complaint and information (official charging instrument in a misdemeanor) have been filed at the county clerk’s office.

This was – hang on, let me go check my calendar – the 27th time my client’s case was set on the docket. Which is a lot – but, no complaint and information, it just keeps getting reset about once every 3 or 4 weeks for another status check.

Today was 732 days after my client’s arrest. Two years and two days after. The statute of limitations for a misdemeanor DWI in Texas – which applies to the filing of the charging instrument only – expired two days ago. But this morning when I looked in the clerk’s file, the C&I was there. It had been filed in between the last two settings, just under the two year deadline.

Sigh.

That’s OK. Now I’ll just have to earn my fee the regular way.