A Texas intoxication manslaughter charge doesn’t just threaten your freedom — it threatens to define the rest of your life. But before you let panic take over, you need to arm yourself with knowledge. Understanding what questions to ask — and what defenses exist — could be the difference between decades in prison and walking free.
Here are seven critical questions you need to ask about your intoxication manslaughter case:
- Were you actually intoxicated at the time of driving?
- Are the blood test results accurate and admissible?
- Who or what actually caused the accident?
- Can the prosecution prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt?
- How exactly did the accident occur?
- Were your rights violated during the investigation or arrest?
- What defense strategy gives you the best chance at freedom?
These aren’t just questions — they’re your roadmap to building a real defense. Keep reading to learn why each question matters and how the answers could save your life, or call Mark Thiessen from Thiessen Law Firm immediately for aggressive defenses against your intoxication manslaughter case.
If you or a loved one is facing intoxication manslaughter charges, don’t wait another second. Mark Thiessen has earned 140+ Not Guilty verdicts and is a triple Board-Certified DWI attorney in Houston who specializes in exactly these high-stakes cases. Call now at (713) 864-9000 or contact us online for a consultation that could change everything.
What is intoxication manslaughter?
You probably already know what Texas intoxication manslaughter is since you’re reading this article, but let’s make sure we’re on the same page.
Intoxication manslaughter in Texas occurs when someone operating a vehicle, watercraft, aircraft, or amusement ride while intoxicated causes the death of another person by accident or mistake. The State doesn’t have to prove you meant to hurt anyone — just that you were intoxicated and that your intoxication caused someone’s death.
What are the new intoxication manslaughter laws in Texas?
Texas law on intoxication manslaughter changed significantly with the passage of Senate Bill 745 in 2025, so let’s review the updates.
If your accident occurred on or after September 1, 2025, and prosecutors allege you caused the death of more than one person in the same incident, you can now be charged with a first-degree felony instead of a second-degree felony. This enhancement carries a punishment range of 5 to 99 years in prison or life, dramatically more severe than the standard charge.
Previously, prosecutors had to file separate second-degree felony charges for each victim (2-20 years per charge), which often resulted in complex sentencing issues and “stacking” problems. Under SB 745, causing multiple deaths in the same criminal transaction allows the State to pursue a single first-degree felony charge with a much harsher penalty range. This means if you’re facing allegations of killing two or more people in one incident, you’re now looking at five to ninety-nine years or life in prison instead of the 2-20 year range.
Why do these changes matter?
Here’s what makes these charges so dangerous: the standard second-degree felony carries a punishment range of 2 – 20 years in state prison and up to a $10,000 fine. The enhanced first-degree felony for multiple deaths carries 5-99 years or life in prison. That’s anywhere from two decades to nearly a century of your life gone for what may have been a terrible accident with factors completely outside your control.
The prosecution will paint you as a monster who got behind the wheel drunk and killed someone. Your job — and your lawyer’s job — is to force them to actually prove every element of their case, because most of the time, they can’t.
What questions should you ask about your case?
1. Were you actually intoxicated at the time of driving?
Here’s something most people don’t realize: Texas is an “at the time of driving” state. That means the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were at or above the legal limit (0.08) at the exact moment you were operating the vehicle — not an hour later at the hospital, not two hours later at the police station. If your blood alcohol content was tested after the accident, that number might be completely irrelevant to your case.
This is one of the most powerful defenses in intoxication manslaughter cases in Texas. Your BAC naturally rises and falls over time. Maybe you had a drink right before getting in the car and your BAC was still climbing when the accident happened. Maybe the stress and adrenaline from the crash affected your body’s alcohol absorption.
The bottom line: what your blood test shows an hour after the accident — whether it’s 0.06 or 0.16 — doesn’t necessarily prove you were intoxicated while driving.
2. Are the blood test results accurate and admissible?
Blood tests are treated like gospel in court, but here’s the truth: they’re wildly unreliable. There are serious, documented problems with how blood is collected, stored, tested, and analyzed in Texas. Improper testing procedures, contaminated equipment, broken chain of custody, fermentation in storage containers — the list goes on. Remember when 240,000 Houston blood draw vials were recalled because they were defective? Yeah, that actually happened.
If your lawyer can prove something went wrong during any step of the testing process — and trust us, something almost always goes wrong — your results could be suppressed or thrown out entirely. Was the blood drawn by a certified phlebotomist? Were the vials stored at the proper temperature? Was the testing equipment calibrated correctly? Did the lab follow proper protocols? These aren’t just technicalities; they’re constitutional requirements. One mistake in that chain could be the difference between the average sentence for intoxication manslaughter in Texas and walking out of that courtroom a free person.
3. Who or what actually caused the accident?
This is where intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle in Texas cases often fall apart. Just because you had alcohol in your system doesn’t automatically mean you caused the accident. Maybe the other driver ran a red light. Maybe there was a mechanical failure with your vehicle. Maybe the road conditions were dangerous, or another driver cut you off, or a pedestrian walked into traffic unexpectedly. The State has to prove your intoxication caused the death — not just that you were drinking and an accident happened.
This concept is called “causation,” and it’s one of the most difficult elements for prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. If your attorney can show that someone or something else caused the accident, the intoxication manslaughter charges should be dismissed.
Sure, you might still face DWI charges, but that’s a misdemeanor with far less serious consequences than a second-degree felony and exponentially less serious than a first-degree felony if multiple deaths are alleged. Don’t let the State blur the line between “you were drinking” and “you caused a death” — those are two very different things, and they have to prove both.
4. Can the prosecution prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt?
Let’s dig deeper into causation because this is where the prosecution’s case lives or dies. In intoxication manslaughter Texas cases, the State must connect the dots between your intoxication and the victim’s death. As we’ve explained, it’s not enough to say “you were drunk and someone died.” They have to prove that your impairment directly caused the accident that killed someone, and that the death wouldn’t have occurred but for your intoxication. This becomes even more critical in cases involving multiple deaths under the new SB 745 enhancement.
Here’s where it gets tricky for prosecutors: what if the victim wasn’t wearing a seatbelt? What if they had pre-existing medical conditions that contributed to their death? What if the accident was relatively minor but the victim died from complications days later? What if weather, road design, or another driver’s actions played a role? These are all causation problems that can destroy the State’s case.
Even if you were over the legal limit, if they can’t prove your intoxication was the direct cause of death, you shouldn’t be convicted. And if they can’t establish causation for even one of the alleged victims, it could affect their ability to pursue the enhanced first-degree felony charge, potentially reducing the case back to second-degree felony charges or even dismissal of some counts entirely. Period.
5. How exactly did the accident occur?
Understanding exactly how the accident happened is crucial to building your defense. This goes beyond just “who caused it” — it’s about reconstructing every single detail of what happened in those critical seconds. Were there any extenuating circumstances? Mechanical failures? Weather conditions? Road hazards? Was the victim doing something unexpected or dangerous?
Figuring out the “how” can be incredibly complicated. It might require accident reconstruction experts, eyewitness testimony, black box data from vehicles, surveillance footage, and detailed analysis of the crash scene. But this is exactly the kind of work that separates a public defender from a specialist who knows how to fight these cases.
Once your lawyer uncovers how the accident truly occurred, they can build a defense that challenges the State’s narrative and shows the jury what really happened — not the oversimplified story prosecutors want them to believe.
6. Were your rights violated during the investigation or arrest?
Police and prosecutors are supposed to follow the rules, but in the chaos following a fatal accident, constitutional rights get trampled all the time. Did the officers have probable cause to arrest you? Did they read you your Miranda rights before questioning you? Did they obtain a proper warrant before drawing your blood? Were you coerced into making statements while you were injured, in shock, or under the influence?
Here’s something they don’t advertise: if law enforcement violated your constitutional rights during the investigation, any evidence they gathered could be suppressed. That means blood test results, your statements, field sobriety tests — all of it could be thrown out before trial even starts.
This is especially important for first-time intoxication manslaughter defendants who don’t know their rights and are trying to cooperate with police while emotionally devastated. You don’t have to make the State’s job easier by giving up your constitutional protections. Your attorney’s job is to hold them accountable for every single rule they’re supposed to follow.
7. What defense strategy gives you the best chance at freedom?
Every intoxication manslaughter case is different, and cookie-cutter defenses don’t work when you’re facing 2-20 years in prison or 5-99 years to life if you’re facing the enhanced first-degree felony charge for multiple deaths. The sentence for intoxication manslaughter in Texas is severe, and the new enhancement under SB 745 makes the stakes even higher, which means your defense strategy needs to be aggressive, customized, and backed by real scientific and legal expertise.
Maybe your defense focuses on challenging the blood test results. Maybe it’s proving someone else caused the accident. Maybe it’s demonstrating that your rights were violated. Or maybe it’s a combination of all of these.
This is why you need a lawyer who specializes in these exact cases — not a general practice attorney who handles divorces on Tuesdays and DWIs on Thursdays. Mark Thiessen is triple Board-Certified and has the scientific credentials to challenge forensic evidence, the trial experience to fight prosecutors in court, and the track record to prove he knows how to win.
If you want to know more about your specific situation and what defenses might work for your case, check out our intoxication manslaughter FAQs or call us immediately to start building your defense. The prosecution is already building their case against you — every day you wait is a day they get stronger.
Are you facing a charge of intoxication manslaughter in Houston?
Nobody’s denying that intoxication manslaughter is a tragedy. But you know what else is a tragedy? Sending someone to prison for 20 years, or up to 99 years to life under the new multiple-death enhancement, when the State can’t actually prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
You deserve a Houston intoxication manslaughter attorney who will actually fight for you, not one who’s going to push you toward a plea deal before they’ve even investigated your case. Mark Thiessen is triple board-certified, a Super Lawyer, and an accredited Lawyer-Scientist who has won 140+ Not Guilty verdicts by actually challenging the State’s so-called “evidence.”
He’s not just experienced in Texas intoxication manslaughter cases — he specializes in them. That means he knows the science behind blood testing, the flaws in accident reconstruction, the implications of the new SB 745 enhancement for multiple-death cases, and exactly how to dismantle a prosecutor’s case piece by piece.
Thiessen Law Firm has the expertise, resources, and track record to examine every aspect of your case and build a defense that gives you a real chance at freedom. Don’t let fear or guilt push you into accepting a fate you don’t deserve. Call us today at (713) 864-9000 or contact us online for a consultation that could save your life.
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