Collin County Criminal Courts

If you have been arrested in McKinney, Plano, Frisco, Allen, or anywhere in Collin County, the courthouse can feel like a maze: seven misdemeanor courts, more than a dozen district courts, and a driver's-license clock running quietly in the background from the moment of arrest. This guide explains how the Collin County criminal courts actually work: where your case will be heard, who will be prosecuting it, what the local process looks like from arrest to disposition, and which diversion and specialty-court programs may be available. It reflects how these courts run in practice, not just what a statute says. Nothing here is legal advice or a promise about your case (every case is different), but it should help you walk in knowing what to expect.

Where your case will be heard

Which court hears your case depends entirely on the level of the charge.

Misdemeanor DWI and other Class A/B misdemeanors: County Courts at Law. Class A and Class B misdemeanors, including DWI, are heard in the Collin County County Courts at Law. There are seven of them (County Courts at Law Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7), and each has full Class A and Class B criminal jurisdiction. A first-offense DWI is a Class B misdemeanor; a DWI 2nd (with a prior conviction) is a Class A misdemeanor. Importantly, there is no single "DWI court" for ordinary misdemeanor DWI in Collin County; a misdemeanor DWI can be filed in and assigned to any of the seven County Courts at Law. (County Court at Law No. 7 runs a separate, opt-in DWI/Drug Court specialty docket, described under Local programs; that is a program you enter, not the default assignment for a routine DWI.) The specific court assigned to an individual case appears on your court-notice paperwork and in the county's online case search.

Felony charges: District Courts. Felony criminal matters are heard in the Collin County District Courts. Felony DWI-related charges include a DWI 3rd or subsequent (a third-degree felony), a DWI with a child passenger (a state jail felony), intoxication assault, and intoxication manslaughter. The prosecutor's office runs seven felony trial teams assigned to seven felony district courts (the 199th, 219th, 296th, 366th, 380th, 401st, and 416th District Courts), which are the county's primary felony criminal courts. Collin County has fifteen district courts in total; the remaining courts primarily handle civil and family matters, though docket assignments can shift.

Class C, fine-only offenses: Justice of the Peace and municipal courts. Fine-only Class C matters (most traffic tickets, public intoxication, minor-in-possession, and city-ordinance violations) are not heard in the County Courts at Law. Class C offenses that occur outside city limits go to one of Collin County's Justice of the Peace precinct courts. Class C offenses that occur inside a city's limits go to that city's municipal court; McKinney, Plano, Frisco, Allen, and other Collin County cities each run their own.

Who prosecutes your case

Here is a structural fact that surprises defendants who have dealt with other Texas counties: Collin County does not split criminal prosecution between a County Attorney and a District Attorney. A single, unified office, the Collin County Criminal District Attorney's Office (elected Criminal District Attorney Greg Willis), prosecutes both misdemeanors and felonies. There is no separate county-attorney office handling misdemeanor DWI here.

Inside that office, the work is divided by division. The Misdemeanor Trial Division handles all Class A and Class B misdemeanor offenses filed in the county, including every misdemeanor DWI, with prosecutors from that division assigned across the County Courts at Law. The Felony Trial Division handles felonies through seven trial teams assigned to the felony district courts.

Office: Collin County Criminal District Attorney's Office, 2100 Bloomdale Road, Suite 100, McKinney, TX 75071, the same complex as the criminal courthouse. Phone (972) 548-4323; metro (972) 424-1460.

How a first-offense DWI is generally handled. The office publicly describes an aggressive posture on impaired-driving cases, including a no-refusal practice in which prosecutors seek blood search warrants when a driver refuses to provide a breath or blood specimen. DWI is named as the most common Class B offense the office handles. The point that matters most for a first-time defendant is this: first-offense DWI is expressly excluded from the office's pretrial diversion program (discussed below), so there is no standard diversion-to-dismissal track for an ordinary first DWI in Collin County the way there is in some other counties. Whether any individual case is reduced, resolved, or set for trial depends on the specific facts, the defendant's record, and the evidence, and no outcome is promised. This guide describes the options that exist here; it does not predict what will happen in any particular case.

The local process, step by step

Every case is different, but a Collin County criminal case generally moves through these stages:

1. Arrest and booking. After a DWI or other arrest, you are booked into the Collin County Jail through the Sheriff's Office, which maintains the arrest and booking records.
2. Magistration. A magistrate informs you of the charges and your rights, sets bond, and imposes any bond conditions, generally shortly after booking.
3. Bond and conditions. Collin County does not appear to use a fixed, published countywide bail schedule; reporting indicates a magistrate sets each bond individually based on the charge and the defendant's history. Conditions can include no-alcohol terms, an ignition interlock device, or portable or continuous alcohol monitoring (such as a SCRAM device).
4. The driver's-license clock (separate track). A DWI arrest starts a second, civil case against your license. You have only 15 days from the notice of suspension to request an Administrative License Revocation (ALR) hearing from the Texas Department of Public Safety, or your license is automatically suspended. This proceeding is handled by the State Office of Administrative Hearings, not the criminal court; see below.
5. Filing and first setting. For a misdemeanor, the Criminal District Attorney's Misdemeanor Trial Division files the charge and the case is set in the assigned County Court at Law. For a felony, the case is presented to a grand jury for indictment before it proceeds in a District Court. Filing is electronic. Your first setting is largely administrative: appearances, scheduling, and confirming counsel.
6. Discovery. Under the Michael Morton Act (Texas's criminal discovery statute), the prosecution provides its evidence. In DWI cases this typically includes the offense/incident report, the probable-cause affidavit, CAD dispatch records, breath or blood lab results, certified driving records, any EMS or hospital records, and dash-cam and body-cam video.
7. Announcement / plea dockets. Cases move through a rhythm of reset settings at which the parties announce status, exchange positions, and either keep negotiating or move toward trial.
8. Pretrial motions. Where the facts support it, and routinely in felony matters, the defense files motions such as a motion to suppress evidence, along with related trial-preparation filings.
9. Trial setting. If the case does not resolve, it is set for trial, with announcement practice governing how firmly a given trial date holds.
10. Disposition. The case concludes by dismissal, plea, or trial verdict, depending on its facts and posture.

Local programs

Collin County runs several specialty dockets and diversion programs, but the paths that can end a DWI in a dismissal are narrow. Eligibility and outcomes below come from the county's published program materials; confirm current terms with the administering office, because criteria change.

• Pretrial diversion ("Burden-to-Blessing"): Criminal District Attorney. The DA's pretrial diversion program is an agreement with the office; on successful completion, the office files a motion to dismiss the case (a true dismissal, with expunction eligibility afterward). But the program excludes DWI and other intoxication offenses (it also excludes violent, family-violence, sex, child, and weapons offenses). In other words, completion means dismissal, but a DWI is not eligible for this program.
• DWI/Drug Court: County Court at Law No. 7. This is a post-plea program: it requires a guilty plea and about two years of formal probation. It is voluntary, requires screening and a substance-abuse evaluation, generally requires a SCRAM device for at least the first three months, and requires that you be a Collin County resident. Eligible offenses include DWI 2nd, a DWI 1st with a high BAC or an accident, and a DWI 1st involving drugs. Disqualifiers include out-of-county residents, pending felony charges, and prior or current violent or sex offenses. Successful graduation results in early termination of probation, not a dismissal; the plea and conviction stand, and failure triggers the suspended sentence.
• Misdemeanor Veterans Treatment Court: County Court at Law No. 6. A 12–24 month program for veterans whose offense connects to a service-related condition (such as PTSD, TBI, or substance use). DWI is not categorically excluded (disqualifiers include dishonorable discharge, sex or child-victim offenses, murder, manslaughter, and intoxication manslaughter). On successful completion, outcomes may include dismissal of eligible charges, subject to law and to court and prosecutor approval. For a qualifying veteran, this is effectively the county's only routine specialty-court path that can end an ordinary DWI in a dismissal. A felony-level North Texas Regional Veterans Treatment Court runs through the 296th District Court.
• Adult Mental Health Court. A diversion program for defendants (age 17+) with a qualifying mental-health diagnosis or intellectual/developmental disability who are out on bond and Collin County residents. It excludes DWI, so it is not a DWI pathway.

Driver's-license (ALR) hearings. ALR hearings are civil driver's-license proceedings held by the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH), not the criminal courts. Hearings default to Zoom videoconference; when an in-person or regional setting is used, Collin County is served by SOAH's Dallas regional office. The hearing must be requested from DPS within 15 days of the notice of suspension. In practice, the ALR hearing is also a discovery vehicle for the parallel criminal DWI case.

What makes Collin County different

A few realities of practicing here are things a local defendant would recognize immediately and an out-of-town firm can miss.

One office prosecutes everything, and it prosecutes DWI hard. Unlike counties that split misdemeanors and felonies between two prosecutors, Collin County runs a single Criminal District Attorney's Office for both. That office is public about its aggressive DWI posture, including a no-refusal, blood-warrant practice when a driver declines to give a specimen. For a defendant, the practical upshot is that the same office culture applies whether your charge is a first-offense misdemeanor or a felony, and the room to resolve a DWI cheaply is narrower than it is in some neighboring counties.

There is no "just do diversion and it goes away" for a first DWI here. In some Texas counties, a first-time misdemeanor DWI can be steered into a pretrial diversion program that ends in dismissal. Collin County is not one of them: the DA's diversion program expressly excludes DWI, the Adult Mental Health Court excludes DWI, and the DWI/Drug Court requires a guilty plea and yields early probation termination rather than a dismissal. The one routine specialty-court route that can actually end a DWI in a dismissal is the Misdemeanor Veterans Treatment Court, and only for eligible veterans. Understanding that landscape from day one changes how a case is approached, because the easy off-ramp that exists elsewhere is not on the table here.

The driver's-license fight is a separate case that is easy to miss. A DWI arrest starts a second, civil proceeding against your license that has nothing to do with the criminal courtroom. It runs on its own 15-day clock, it is heard at the State Office of Administrative Hearings rather than at the McKinney courthouse, and it moves on a parallel track: the criminal charge and the license suspension can be fought at the same time. Two tools matter here: the ALR hearing, which contests the administrative suspension itself, and the Occupational Driver's License, which (typically with SR-22 insurance and an ignition interlock) can let a person keep driving to work, school, and treatment while the criminal case is pending. Ignoring the license track is one of the costliest mistakes a defendant can make, because the deadline passes quietly and the suspension takes effect automatically.

One large, fast-growing county, one criminal complex. Collin County is one of the largest and fastest-growing counties in Texas, anchored by Plano, Frisco, McKinney, and Allen, and its criminal dockets are correspondingly heavy. Nearly everything on the criminal side sits on a single Bloomdale Road campus in McKinney: the trial courts, the District Clerk, magistration, and the Criminal District Attorney's Office are all there, with the County Clerk's misdemeanor records in the adjacent administration building. A heavy docket run out of one complex means settings move on a firm reset rhythm, and staying organized about your dates and paperwork matters more than it might in a smaller county.

Attorneys who appear here

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Charges we defend in Collin County

We defend the full range of criminal and DWI matters in the Collin County courts, including:

• DWI: first offense
• Felony DWI
• Multiple-offense DWI (DWI 2nd and subsequent)
• Underage DWI
• Drug possession and drug charges
• Assault
• Weapons and unlawful-carry charges

External resources

• Collin County case search (Judicial Online Search / Odyssey)
• Collin County Criminal District Attorney (misdemeanor & felony prosecutor)
• Collin County County Courts at Law (misdemeanor courts)
• Collin County District Courts (felony courts)
• DWI/Drug Court: County Court at Law No. 7
• Misdemeanor Veterans Treatment Court: County Court at Law No. 6
• Collin County Sheriff: inmate / jail information
• SOAH driver's-license (ALR) hearing schedule

Frequently asked questions

Nearest office

The Frisco office is in Collin County, minutes from the McKinney courts. If you have been arrested in Collin County, call for a free case review or contact us online.

Other courthouse guides

• Dallas County Courthouse Guide: The criminal courts of Dallas County. Link pending.
• Denton County Courthouse Guide: The criminal courts of Denton County (Denton). Link pending.
• Tarrant County Courthouse Guide: The criminal courts of Tarrant County (Fort Worth). Link pending.
• Travis County (Austin) Courthouse Guide: The criminal courts of Travis County.