Criminal Law Blog
October 28, 2006
Let me explain what “aggravated” time is.
Let’s assume for a moment that the police follow you with their lights on trying to pull you over and you don’t see them. You just drive home. Then you are accused of a felony evading arrest, and that the indictment alleges that your vehicle was a deadly weapon.
Ordinarily, a felony evading arrest charge would be a State Jail Felony, but the addition of the deadly weapon allegation increases the charge from a State Jail Felony to a 3rd Degree Felony.
Let’s also assume that the State has made a plea bargain offer to you of 10 years in prison. Because you are accused of a using your vehicle as a deadly weapon, this is a “3(g)” offense. This refers to article 42.12 subsection 3(g) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
If you’re found guilty, then you have to serve the first half of the 10 years as flat time. In other words, for the first half your sentence, you cannot accrue good time credit. An example of “good time credit” is something you probably hear about jail, about guys who are sentenced to serve 6 months, but only actually spend 3 months inside the jail because they received 2 for 1 “good conduct time” credit.
Also under Texas law, you cannot be eligible for parole during the first half of your sentence. So, for example in the event you wanted to accept the State’s offer of 10 years, you would serve at least 5 calendar years before you would be eligible for parole, and before you would be eligible to accrue credit for your good conduct.
However, the fact that it is possible that you might receive parole after the first half of your sentence does not mean that you necessarily will. In fact, the most recent statistics from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice indicate that you probably wouldn’t. In the end, the only thing that can be said for sure is that it is impossible to predict how much time any person will serve before he is paroled.