Harassment of a public servant is a third-degree felony under Texas Penal Code § 22.11 — 2 to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine for causing an officer, jailer, or other public servant to contact saliva, blood, urine, or feces. Below: the statute's three prongs, the intent element the State actually has to prove, defenses that work, and how these cases run in Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant County courts.
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Published 2026-06-11 · Reviewed by Reggie London and Njeri London, Co-Founding Partners · Last reviewed: 2026-06-11
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Controlling statute:Texas Penal Code § 22.11 Classification: Third-degree felony (every prong of the statute) Punishment range: 2–10 years TDCJ + fine up to $10,000; 2–20 years with one prior felony (§ 12.42(a)); 25–99 years or life as a habitual offender (§ 12.42(d))
What Is Harassment of a Public Servant Under Texas Law?
Texas Penal Code § 22.11 — formally titled "Harassment by Persons in Certain Facilities; Harassment of Public Servant" — makes it a third-degree felony to cause another person, "with the intent to assault, harass, or alarm," to contact the blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces of the actor, any other person, or an animal. In day-to-day practice this is the statute behind nearly every "spitting on a police officer" felony filed in Texas, and behind most bodily-fluid incidents charged out of county jails.
The statute reaches three distinct situations:
In custody — § 22.11(a)(1). A person imprisoned or confined in a correctional or detention facility causes any other person to contact a listed bodily fluid. The target does not have to be a public servant. A detention officer, a jail nurse, a contract medical tech, or another inmate all qualify, and the State never has to prove the actor knew anyone's job title.
Civil commitment — § 22.11(a)(2). A person committed to a Texas Civil Commitment Office facility causes a TCCO officer, employee, or state contractor to contact a listed fluid, either during the person's duties or in retaliation for them.
Public servant anywhere — § 22.11(a)(3). Causing a person the actor knows to be a public servant to contact a listed fluid while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty, or in retaliation for or on account of the exercise of official power. No confinement required — this prong applies on the roadside, in the back of a patrol car, or in a hospital hallway.
A citation trap worth knowing: the public-servant prong sat at § 22.11(a)(2) from the statute's 1999 enactment until the 85th Legislature inserted the civil-commitment prong in 2017 (S.B. 1576, effective September 1, 2017) and renumbered it. Opinions issued before late 2017 — including most of the reported spitting cases — cite "(a)(2)" for conduct that today is charged under (a)(3). The elements did not change; only the subsection number did.
The Legislature enacted § 22.11 in 1999 (Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 335) primarily to protect corrections staff from bodily-fluid attacks, and has amended it five times since — most substantively in 2003, when the covered conduct was broadened, and in 2017, when the civil-commitment prong was added. Note also that the statute covers fluids of "the actor, any other person, or an animal" — throwing a cup of someone else's urine is charged exactly the same as spitting.
Elements the State Must Prove
For the public-servant prong, § 22.11(a)(3), every element must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. Intent to assault, harass, or alarm
The culpable mental state. Under Penal Code § 6.03(a), a person acts with intent when it is his "conscious objective or desire" to engage in the conduct or cause the result. The State does not have to prove the actor meant to hit the particular officer who was struck — but it must prove the act was driven by a purpose to assault, harass, or alarm, not by reflex, panic, or a medical event.
2. Caused contact with a listed substance
Blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces — of the actor, any other person, or an animal. Actual contact is required for the completed offense; a near-miss is at most an attempt.
3. Knowledge of public-servant status
The actor must know the person contacted is a public servant. Section 22.11(e) supplies a presumption: knowledge is presumed if the person wore "a distinctive uniform or badge" indicating public employment. Like all penal presumptions, it is rebuttable and the jury must be instructed under Penal Code § 2.05 that it may — not must — accept it.
4. Lawful discharge of official duty, or retaliation
The contact must occur while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty, or in retaliation for or on account of an exercise of official power. The Dallas Court of Appeals stated the full element set this way in Mitchell v. State, No. 05-12-00878-CR (Tex. App.—Dallas July 26, 2013): intent to assault, harass, or alarm, plus knowledge of public-servant status, plus causing the officer to contact the defendant's saliva while lawfully discharging an official duty.
For the custody prong, § 22.11(a)(1), elements 3 and 4 drop out entirely and are replaced by a single circumstance: the actor was imprisoned or confined in a correctional or detention facility when he caused any person to contact a listed fluid. That asymmetry matters — booking-area incidents are routinely charged under (a)(1) precisely because the State avoids litigating knowledge and lawful-discharge questions.
"Public servant" is defined broadly at Penal Code § 1.07(a)(41): officers, employees, and agents of government — peace officers, detention officers, judges, prosecutors — plus jurors, grand jurors, and others performing governmental functions.
What Are the Penalties for Harassment of a Public Servant?
Every prong of § 22.11 is a third-degree felony under subsection (b). There is no misdemeanor version of this offense — the floor is prison-range felony exposure, and prior convictions raise it from there under the Penal Code § 12.42 enhancement ladder.
Scenario
Classification
Confinement
Max fine
§ 22.11 — any prong, no priors
Third-degree felony (§ 12.34)
2–10 years TDCJ
$10,000
One prior felony conviction — § 12.42(a)
Punished as second-degree
2–20 years TDCJ
$10,000
Two sequential prior felonies — § 12.42(d)
Habitual range
25–99 years or life
—
Attempt (no contact made) — § 15.01(d)
State jail felony
180 days–2 years state jail
$10,000
Community supervision remains on the table: § 22.11 is not listed in Code of Criminal Procedure art. 42A.054, so judge-ordered probation is available after conviction, and deferred adjudication is available on a plea. Prosecutors routinely plead enhancement paragraphs in these cases — in Mitchell, the State alleged a prior assault-on-a-public-servant conviction and a prior drug-delivery conviction to raise the range on both harassment counts.
Two grading insights stand out. First, § 22.11 carries the same felony grade as assault on a public servant under § 22.01(b)(1) — but the assault statute requires bodily injury, while § 22.11 requires none. Saliva contact with zero physical harm is graded identically to an injury-causing assault on an officer. Second, because attempt drops an offense one category under § 15.01(d), a spit that misses is a state jail felony — a meaningfully different exposure (180 days to 2 years in a state jail, day-for-day) than the 2-to-10 prison range for contact. Whether anything actually landed is therefore not a detail; it is a grading fight worth roughly eight years of range.
How Do Prosecutors Prove Intent in Spitting Cases?
Intent to assault, harass, or alarm is almost never proven with direct evidence — nobody announces a mental state mid-arrest. The State builds it from circumstance, and Texas appellate courts have blessed that approach in § 22.11 prosecutions specifically.
In Nealy v. State, No. 01-18-00216-CR (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] June 13, 2019), a jail-booking case charged under the custody prong, the court held that under the plain language of § 22.11(a)(1) the State was not required to prove the defendant intended to spit on the specific officer who was hit — only that she intended to assault, harass, or alarm when causing contact with a listed substance. The court also reaffirmed the working rule for these cases: a jury may infer intent from the defendant's acts, words, and conduct, and combative, unruly behavior — yelling, kicking, swinging at officers, spitting at cell windows — supports the inference.
The Dallas Court of Appeals reached the same destination in Mitchell v. State: the defendant claimed he meant to spit on one officer, not the second officer his saliva also struck. Both convictions were affirmed — the officers' close proximity while leaning into the patrol car, plus the defendant's belligerence throughout the encounter, let a rational jury conclude he intended to harass, assault, or alarm both. One spit, two felony counts. Nealy makes the companion point for double-jeopardy purposes: offenses against different victims are factually separate offenses, so multiple officers hit by the same act can lawfully mean multiple charges.
For the defense, the intent element is simultaneously the State's strongest jury argument and its thinnest proof. Belligerence is common in these arrests — pain, intoxication, panic, and positional restraint all produce conduct that looks "combative" on a report. The question § 6.03(a) actually asks is whether causing fluid contact was the person's conscious objective. A defendant clearing blood from his mouth after a takedown, gagging under a spit hood, or spraying saliva while shouting has a genuine factual defense that no listed element excuses the State from disproving.
One more charging-pattern reality, visible in the Nealy record itself: the same spitting episode produced a Class C misdemeanor assault citation as to one officer and a third-degree felony harassment charge as to another. Section 22.11(c) expressly authorizes the State to prosecute under § 22.11 or any other applicable section when conduct overlaps — which means the difference between a fine-only ticket and a prison-range felony is often a charging election, not a difference in conduct. That discretion is also where negotiated outcomes live.
What Defenses Work Against a § 22.11 Charge?
Defense strategy in these cases is fact-intensive and usually video-driven. The lanes that recur:
No intent to assault, harass, or alarm. The center of most § 22.11 trials. Involuntary expulsion — blood or saliva cleared after a struggle, a gag reflex under a spit hood or restraint chair, a seizure or diabetic episode, spray incidental to shouting — negates the conscious-objective mental state § 6.03(a) requires.
No contact. The completed offense requires that the public servant actually contacted the substance. If the State cannot prove contact, the case is at most an attempt — one grade lower, state jail felony — and sometimes nothing at all.
No knowledge of public-servant status. The (a)(3) prong requires that the actor knew the person was a public servant. The § 22.11(e) uniform-or-badge presumption does not apply to plainclothes detectives, unmarked units, or off-duty officers working security, and even when it applies it is rebuttable under § 2.05.
Not lawfully discharging an official duty. Where the State proceeds on the lawful-discharge theory rather than retaliation, the lawfulness of the underlying detention or use of force is in play, and it intersects with suppression litigation over the arrest itself.
Substance identity. The State must prove the substance was one of the six listed fluids. Indeterminate spray during shouting, water or another thrown liquid, and contamination disputes all fit here — there is no field test for saliva on a uniform sleeve.
The video record. Booking areas, sally ports, and patrol units are heavily recorded in DFW counties. Frame-by-frame review of head position, officer hand placement, spit-hood timing, and what was said immediately before the alleged act regularly tells a different story than the offense report. Preservation letters should go out in week one.
Charging-election leverage. Because § 22.11(c) lets the State choose the statute, resolution as assault by offensive contact under § 22.01(a)(3) — a Class C misdemeanor — or another reduced disposition is a recognized endgame when intent proof is shaky.
A hypothetical that captures the standard fight: a driver is taken down hard during a DWI arrest and his lip splits. In the patrol car he turns his head and expectorates blood toward the floorboard; spray contacts the deputy's forearm. The report reads "suspect spat blood on deputy." The video shows a bleeding man clearing his mouth while restrained. Same facts, two stories — and the difference between a third-degree felony and no offense at all is the jury's answer on conscious objective.
Can a § 22.11 Charge Be Dismissed or Expunged?
Dismissals happen, but they are earned through the proof problems above — intent failures, contact failures, video contradictions — or through grand jury no-bills, not through technicalities. Felony charges must be indicted, and a § 22.11 case presented on a thin intent record can and does no-bill.
Record relief tracks the outcome:
Dismissal, acquittal, or no-bill → expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A, which erases the arrest record entirely once the statutory conditions are met. See our expunction vs. non-disclosure guide.
Completed deferred adjudication → an order of nondisclosure under Government Code § 411.0725 is available for this offense after the five-year felony waiting period, because § 22.11 is not among the categorical bars in § 411.074. Eligibility still depends on the rest of the person's record.
Conviction — including straight probation → permanent. Felony convictions are never expunction- or nondisclosure-eligible in Texas absent a pardon, which is why the deferred-versus-conviction decision at plea is a record decision, not just a punishment decision.
§ 22.11 vs. Assault on a Public Servant and Other Officer-Related Charges
Several neighboring statutes get confused with — or stacked onto — a harassment of a public servant charge:
Assault on a public servant — § 22.01(b)(1), third-degree felony. Requires bodily injury (physical pain suffices). § 22.11 requires no injury, only fluid contact. The two are frequently filed together out of one struggle.
Harassment — § 42.07, generally a Class B misdemeanor covering repeated calls, texts, and electronic messages. Despite the shared name, it has nothing to do with § 22.11 — a distinction that matters enormously on a background check.
Resisting arrest — § 38.03, Class A misdemeanor for using force against an officer's effort to arrest or search. Often the companion count when a struggle precedes the alleged spitting.
Obstruction or retaliation — § 36.06, third-degree felony for threats or harm on account of a person's service as a public servant. The retaliation theory of § 22.11(a)(3) overlaps with it conceptually; prosecutors choose the fluid statute when fluids are involved.
Assault by offensive contact — § 22.01(a)(3), Class C misdemeanor. Contact "the actor knows or should reasonably believe the other will regard as offensive" — the common negotiated landing spot for weak-intent § 22.11 cases.
County-by-County Practice Notes: Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant
Because every § 22.11 case is a felony, it is presented to a grand jury and, if indicted, lands in a district court.
Collin County. Felony cases are heard in the district courts at the Collin County Courthouse, 2100 Bloomdale Road in McKinney. The typical § 22.11 fact pattern here begins in a city jail — Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Allen — or the county detention facility during booking, which means in-custody video usually exists and should be requested immediately.
Dallas County. Felonies are heard at the Frank Crowley Courts Building, which adjoins the county jail complex — and jail booking and housing areas are where a large share of Dallas County § 22.11 charges originate. Street-arrest cases happen too: Mitchell itself was a Dallas prosecution that began with a patrol stop in Deep Ellum and ended with two harassment convictions affirmed on appeal.
Denton County. Felony dockets run through the district courts at the Denton County Courts Building in Denton. Transport and intake incidents from city holding facilities are the recurring source.
Tarrant County. Felony cases are heard at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth. As elsewhere, the practical defense work starts with preservation requests for booking-area and transport video before retention windows lapse.
Across all four counties, the same practice observation holds: a § 22.11 charge usually arrives as the second case, stacked on whatever arrest was already underway — DWI, public intoxication, a warrant pickup. The felony then becomes the lead case, drives the bond posture, and reshapes the negotiation on the original misdemeanor.
What Happens After a § 22.11 Arrest?
The procedural arc is the standard Texas felony track, with a few offense-specific wrinkles:
Arrest and magistration. Within roughly 48 hours, a magistrate gives art. 15.17 warnings and sets bond. Because the new charge is a felony alleged against an officer or jail staff, bond amounts and bond conditions are usually set with that framing in mind.
Bond. Where an underlying case already has a bond, the § 22.11 case gets its own; conditions can include no-contact terms and supervision. Bond modification practice varies by county.
Grand jury. A felony information cannot proceed without indictment unless the defendant waives it under art. 1.141. The grand jury stage is a genuine opportunity in thin-intent cases — defense packets addressing the medical or involuntary explanation can and do produce no-bills.
Discovery. Article 39.14 (the Michael Morton Act) obligates the State to produce offense reports, jail video, body-camera footage, and use-of-force documentation. In these cases discovery review is the defense investigation.
Pretrial motions. Suppression where the underlying stop or arrest is challengeable; charge-language motions where the indictment hedges between prongs; in-limine work on inflammatory disease references that have no statutory relevance.
Resolution. Trial, dismissal, reduction under the § 22.11(c) election, or a negotiated plea — with the deferred-adjudication-versus-conviction fork carrying the long-term record consequences described above.
Collateral Consequences of a § 22.11 Conviction
A third-degree felony conviction carries the full set of Texas felony disabilities:
Firearms. State law (Penal Code § 46.04) bars possession until the fifth anniversary of release from confinement or supervision, and then only at home; federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), imposes a lifetime bar. See felon in possession.
Employment and licensing. Occupations Code chapter 53 lets licensing agencies act on convictions related to the licensed occupation — and an assaultive felony against a public servant reads badly to nearly every board, from nursing to education to security licensing.
Immigration. Assaultive offenses can carry serious immigration consequences depending on the record of conviction; noncitizen clients need parallel immigration analysis before any plea.
Civic rights. Voting is suspended until the sentence, including supervision, is fully discharged; jury service and public office are restricted.
Future enhancement. The conviction becomes a prior felony for § 12.42 purposes, raising the range on any later felony — the exact mechanism the State used in Mitchell.
Housing and background checks. A felony with "public servant" in the offense name is conspicuous on every screening report, which is one more reason the deferred-adjudication path and its nondisclosure endgame matter.
A second hypothetical shows the custody prong's reach: a detainee in a county jail, angry about a delayed phone call, throws a cup of urine that splashes a jail trusty — another inmate, not an officer. That is still a third-degree felony under § 22.11(a)(1): the custody prong protects any person inside the facility, and the State need not prove the detainee knew anything about the victim's status.
Key Legal Terms
Harassment of a Public Servant (§ 22.11(a)(3))
Causing a person known to be a public servant to contact blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces with intent to assault, harass, or alarm, while the public servant lawfully discharges an official duty or in retaliation for it. Third-degree felony.
Harassment by Persons in Certain Facilities (§ 22.11(a)(1))
The custody prong: a person imprisoned or confined in a correctional or detention facility causing any other person — public servant or not — to contact a listed bodily fluid with intent to assault, harass, or alarm.
Public Servant (§ 1.07(a)(41))
Officers, employees, and agents of government — including peace officers, detention officers, judges, and prosecutors — plus jurors and others performing governmental functions.
Uniform Presumption (§ 22.11(e))
A rebuttable presumption that the actor knew the victim was a public servant if the victim wore a distinctive uniform or badge indicating public employment; instructed under Penal Code § 2.05.
Intent (§ 6.03(a))
A person acts intentionally when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result — the mental state every § 22.11 prosecution must prove.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is spitting on a police officer a felony in Texas?
Yes — spitting on a police officer is a third-degree felony under Texas Penal Code § 22.11(a)(3). The State must prove the actor knew the person was a public servant, that the officer was lawfully performing official duties or was targeted in retaliation for them, and that the actor acted with intent to assault, harass, or alarm. The range is 2–10 years and a fine of up to $10,000.
Can I be charged if the spit never touched the officer?
Contact is an element of the completed offense — § 22.11 requires causing the public servant to contact the substance. If nothing landed, the State's fallback is criminal attempt under Penal Code § 15.01, which drops the charge one category to a state jail felony. Whether anything actually made contact is exactly the kind of fact jail video and body-worn cameras settle.
Does the State have to prove I aimed at the specific officer I allegedly harassed?
No. In Nealy v. State, the First Court of Appeals held the State did not have to prove the defendant intended to spit on the officer who was hit — only that she intended to assault, harass, or alarm when she caused contact with a listed substance. Texas courts allow juries to infer that intent from acts, words, and surrounding conduct.
Do prosecutors have to prove the officer was injured or got sick?
No. Section 22.11 has no bodily-injury element and no disease-transmission element. Contact with the bodily fluid, paired with the required intent, completes the offense — which is why a spitting allegation with zero physical harm is graded the same as an injury-causing assault on an officer.
What is the difference between harassment of a public servant and assault on a public servant?
Assault on a public servant under Penal Code § 22.01(b)(1) requires bodily injury — physical pain at minimum. Harassment of a public servant under § 22.11 requires no injury at all; it criminalizes causing contact with saliva, blood, urine, or feces with intent to assault, harass, or alarm. Both are third-degree felonies, and prosecutors sometimes file both from a single encounter.
Is harassment of a public servant the same as harassment under § 42.07?
No. Penal Code § 42.07 harassment covers repeated calls, texts, and electronic messages sent to annoy or alarm, and is generally a Class B misdemeanor. Section 22.11 is an assaultive felony about bodily-fluid contact. The shared name causes real confusion on background checks, so the statute number matters.
Who counts as a public servant under § 22.11?
Penal Code § 1.07(a)(41) defines public servant broadly: officers, employees, and agents of government — police officers, sheriff's deputies, detention officers, judges, prosecutors — plus jurors and others performing governmental functions. The custody prong, § 22.11(a)(1), goes further: it does not require a public-servant victim at all, so any person contacted inside a correctional or detention facility qualifies.
Can I get probation or deferred adjudication for a § 22.11 charge?
Yes, both are legally available. Harassment of a public servant is not on the Code of Criminal Procedure art. 42A.054 list that bars judge-ordered community supervision, and deferred adjudication is permitted on a plea. Prior felony convictions change the calculus — a habitual range under § 12.42(d) starts at 25 years, which community supervision cannot reach.
Can a harassment of a public servant charge be expunged or sealed?
Only a charge that ends without a conviction can come off your record. A dismissal, acquittal, or grand jury no-bill supports expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A. Successfully completed deferred adjudication supports an order of nondisclosure under Government Code § 411.0725 after a five-year waiting period. A felony conviction — including straight probation — cannot be expunged or sealed.
Why is this charge a felony when no one was hurt?
Because the Legislature decided in 1999 that bodily-fluid contact directed at public servants and detention staff deserves felony treatment regardless of injury, driven largely by disease-exposure concerns in jails and prisons. Courts apply the statute as written: contact plus intent equals a third-degree felony. The flip side is that the intent element is genuinely contestable — and that is where most § 22.11 defenses live.
Reggie London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on federal criminal defense, complex felony defense, and TEA/SBEC matters. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
Njeri London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on DWI defense, family violence cases, and juvenile defense. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
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