What is a nondisclosure petition under § 411.0725?
Texas Government Code § 411.0725 authorizes a petition-based order of nondisclosure for a person who successfully completed deferred adjudication community supervision. The court must find the order is in the best interest of justice and the applicant must satisfy the waiting period and disqualifier screen.
- Eligible disposition — completed deferred adjudication
- The applicant must have been placed on deferred adjudication community supervision under Code of Criminal Procedure article 42A.101 and received a dismissal and discharge under article 42A.111. Straight-probation completions (regular community supervision following a conviction) do NOT qualify under § 411.0725; those convictions, where they are eligible at all, proceed only through the narrower SB 731 automatic-nondisclosure route under § 411.0735. A defendant whose deferred adjudication was revoked, who was adjudicated and sentenced under CCP art. 42A.108, or who otherwise did not receive the formal discharge order cannot petition under § 411.0725 — the section is built on the successful-completion premise.
- Waiting period — § 411.072
- No waiting period applies to most misdemeanor completions — the petition can be filed on the date the discharge order issues. A 2-year waiting period under § 411.072 applies to misdemeanors under Penal Code Chapters 20 (kidnapping and unlawful restraint), 21 (sexual offenses), 22 (assaultive offenses), 25 (offenses against family), 42 (disorderly conduct), 43 (public-indecency), and 46 (weapons). A 5-year waiting period applies to felonies. The applicant must remain conviction-free of disqualifying offenses through the entire waiting period; a subsequent qualifying conviction resets eligibility to zero and may permanently disqualify under § 411.074(a).
- Disqualifier screen — §§ 411.071-.074
- The applicant must not have been convicted of (or placed on deferred adjudication for) any of the offenses enumerated in §§ 411.0716(a), 411.071, or 411.074 — a list that captures 3g aggravated offenses under CCP art. 42A.054, family-violence offenses, registration-required sex offenses, capital murder, murder, injury to a child or elderly individual, stalking, and certain weapons and intoxication offenses (including DWI under PC § 49.04(d) at BAC ≥ 0.15 absent ignition interlock compliance). The underlying offense itself may be a § 411.074 disqualifier — in which case the deferred-adjudication completion is irrelevant and the petition is barred at the threshold.
- Best-interest-of-justice finding — § 411.0725(a)
- The trial judge must affirmatively find that issuing the order is in the best interest of justice. The statute does not enumerate factors, leaving the standard discretionary and fact-bound. Texas trial courts in DFW criminal-district courts (Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant counties) regularly weigh post-supervision rehabilitation evidence (employment, family stability, treatment compliance), the prosecutor's opposition or non-opposition, victim input where applicable, the nature of the underlying offense, and any aggravating conduct since discharge. A well-documented motion supported by letters of support, employment verification, and treatment records is regularly the difference between a granted order and a denied petition.
The petition for nondisclosure under § 411.0725 is the workhorse record-sealing remedy for the broad middle of the Texas deferred-adjudication universe. The post-SB 731 automatic-nondisclosure provisions (§ 411.0728 first-time DWI deferred; § 411.0735 narrow misdemeanor convictions) cover only the narrow tip of the eligibility pyramid — most clients who successfully complete deferred adjudication and seek record relief reach the result through § 411.0725, not through automatic sealing. Petition-route work is therefore the primary nondisclosure practice area for criminal-defense counsel in DFW courts.
The structural difference from automatic nondisclosure matters. Under § 411.0728 and § 411.0735, the Department of Public Safety issues the nondisclosure order without judicial intervention once eligibility is verified — no motion, no hearing, no judicial discretion. Under § 411.0725, the applicant files a sworn petition in the court of original jurisdiction, the prosecuting attorney receives notice, the court schedules a hearing where required, and the judge must make the "best interest of justice" finding before signing the order. Each step creates a distinct strategic and procedural opportunity for the defense — and a distinct risk if poorly executed.
The eligibility universe is broader than many practitioners assume. Section 411.0725 reaches felony deferred-adjudication completions (subject to the disqualifier screen and the 5-year waiting period) — which is the only Texas nondisclosure remedy that reaches felony records. SB 731's automatic provisions reach only misdemeanors (under § 411.0735) and a narrow slice of first-time DWI deferred (under § 411.0728). A client who successfully completed felony deferred adjudication for, e.g., a state-jail-felony drug-possession charge under Health & Safety Code § 481.115(b) that was not subject to a disqualifying enhancement has a clear petition-route eligibility path under § 411.0725 — and that path is the only available record-relief option short of expunction (which is generally unavailable for completed deferred-adjudication dispositions).
Petition route vs. automatic nondisclosure — when does each apply?
Petition nondisclosure under § 411.0725 reaches most deferred-adjudication completions. Automatic nondisclosure under §§ 411.0728 and 411.0735 (SB 731, 2023) reaches only first-time DWI deferred and narrow misdemeanor convictions. The petition route is the default for everything else.
The 88th Legislature's SB 731 (effective September 1, 2023) created two new automatic-nondisclosure pathways and reshaped the eligibility landscape. Section 411.0728 reaches first-time DWI deferred adjudication under Penal Code § 49.04 (excluding the § 49.04(d) BAC ≥ 0.15 variant), with no petition required when the applicant completes supervision and satisfies the 2-year (with ignition interlock) or 5-year (without ignition interlock) waiting period. Section 411.0735 reaches certain Class A and B misdemeanor convictions (excluding the § 411.074 disqualifiers), with no petition required when the applicant completes the sentence and satisfies the 2-year (Class B) or 5-year (Class A) waiting period. Both automatic provisions bypass the trial-court "best interest of justice" hearing entirely.
The petition-based provision under § 411.0725 covers the remainder of the deferred-adjudication universe — most felonies, misdemeanors that do not fit the SB 731 categories, deferred-DWI dispositions outside the § 411.0728 narrow scope, and any other deferred completion not captured by automatic sealing. Practitioners must screen each case against both the SB 731 automatic categories and the § 411.0725 petition category — many clients are eligible only under § 411.0725, some are eligible under either route (and should generally prefer automatic if available, because it avoids the discretionary hearing), and a few are ineligible under both routes because the underlying offense triggers a § 411.074 disqualifier.
The strategic preference for automatic over petition matters where both routes are available. Automatic nondisclosure imposes no filing fee, requires no petition or motion, schedules no hearing, and avoids judicial discretion entirely. Petition nondisclosure requires a filing fee, a sworn petition, prosecutor notice, often a hearing, and the "best interest of justice" finding — which the judge can decline to make even where the applicant satisfies the statutory eligibility criteria. In the narrow band where both routes apply (rare under current law), the automatic route is almost always preferable. In the vast majority of cases (deferred-adjudication completions on felonies and on non-SB-731 misdemeanors), the petition route is the only available path.
The petition route also remains the only nondisclosure remedy for deferred adjudication completions involving drug possession under § 411.0727 — which covers state-jail and third-degree felony drug possession deferred-adjudication completions that satisfy the disqualifier screen. Section 411.0727 imposes the same waiting period and best-interest framework as § 411.0725 but specifies the qualifying drug offenses and adds offense-level-specific requirements. Practitioners filing for nondisclosure on a drug-possession deferred completion must identify whether the case proceeds under § 411.0725 (the general provision) or § 411.0727 (the drug-specific provision) — the procedural framework is largely overlapping but the pleading requirements diverge.
Statutory disqualifiers under §§ 411.071-.074
Sections 411.071-.074 disqualify applicants whose underlying offense or criminal history includes 3g aggravated offenses, family violence, sex offenses, certain weapons and intoxication offenses, and prior disqualifying convictions. The disqualifier screen is the threshold eligibility check.
The disqualifier screen lives in three statutes — §§ 411.0716, 411.071, and 411.074 — and overlaps substantially. Section 411.074(a) lists categorical disqualifiers tied to the offense type: 3g aggravated offenses under Code of Criminal Procedure article 42A.054(a), family-violence offenses under Family Code § 71.0021 or Code of Criminal Procedure article 17.292, registration-required sex offenses under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 62, capital murder and murder under Penal Code Chapter 19, injury to a child or elderly or disabled individual under Penal Code § 22.04, abandoning or endangering a child under Penal Code § 22.041, stalking under Penal Code § 42.072, and trafficking-in-persons under Penal Code § 20A.02. If the underlying offense is any of these, petition-route relief is barred regardless of how successfully the applicant completed supervision.
Section 411.074(b) extends the disqualifier framework to the applicant's broader criminal history — a conviction or deferred adjudication for any of the listed disqualifying offenses, before or after the deferred adjudication for which the applicant is seeking nondisclosure, eliminates eligibility. A defendant who completed deferred adjudication for a misdemeanor possession-of-marijuana charge in 2020 but was later convicted of family-violence assault in 2023 has lost eligibility for nondisclosure on the 2020 case under § 411.074(b) — even though the 2020 disposition was unrelated to the family-violence offense. The criminal-history screen is sweeping and operates retroactively across the applicant's entire record.
Intoxication offenses operate as a special-case disqualifier under § 411.074(a) and (b). DWI under Penal Code § 49.04(d) — the BAC ≥ 0.15 variant — is disqualifying unless the deferred adjudication included an ignition interlock device condition for at least 6 months. Intoxication assault under § 49.07 and intoxication manslaughter under § 49.08 are 3g aggravated offenses under CCP art. 42A.054(b)(6) and (7) and disqualifying regardless of disposition. The intoxication-offense disqualifier framework is technical and frequently misapplied — practitioners must verify the specific subsection of the § 49.04 disposition and the presence or absence of an ignition interlock condition before quoting eligibility to a client.
Weapons offenses produce another disqualifier band. Unlawful possession of a firearm under Penal Code § 46.04 by a person previously convicted of a felony, certain prohibited-weapons offenses under § 46.05, and offenses under § 46.06 are disqualifying under § 411.074(a)(4). The deferred adjudication route to dismissal does not cure the disqualifier — the disposition itself triggers the § 411.074 bar even where the supervision was successfully completed and the case dismissed. Defense counsel screening a client for nondisclosure eligibility must check not only the underlying offense but also any pending or prior weapons-related charges that might fall within the § 411.074 weapons-disqualifier band.
The best interest of justice discretionary standard
Section 411.0725(a) requires the court to find that issuing the nondisclosure order is in the best interest of justice. The standard is discretionary, totality-of-the-circumstances, and not enumerated by the Legislature. Compelling supporting evidence and prosecutor non-opposition are the routine deciding factors.
The "best interest of justice" finding is the gate the trial judge controls. Even where the applicant has satisfied every objective criterion — completed deferred adjudication, served the waiting period, cleared the disqualifier screen, filed the petition correctly, given prosecutor notice, and paid the filing fee — the judge can still deny relief if she concludes the order is not in the best interest of justice. The statute does not enumerate the factors, and there is limited appellate guidance on what suffices, leaving the standard fact-bound and judge-specific. Successful petition practice therefore turns on what the defense puts in front of the judge at the hearing.
The recurring factors that move the discretionary calculus in DFW criminal-district courts: nature and circumstances of the underlying offense (was it a serious felony or a minor misdemeanor; was it victimless or did it involve harm to others); the applicant's conduct during deferred adjudication (early termination, perfect compliance, all conditions completed without violation); post-supervision rehabilitation evidence (employment history, family stability, treatment compliance, completion of additional education or training); civic and community engagement since the offense (church involvement, volunteer work, leadership roles); time elapsed beyond the statutory minimum (a 10-year-old offense is generally easier to seal than a 5-year-old one); the prosecutor's opposition or non-opposition (a non-opposed petition is far more likely to be granted); and victim input where applicable.
The mitigation packet the defense puts together for a contested petition hearing resembles a punishment-phase mitigation packet in scope. Sworn letters of support from employers, family members, and community references — each addressing the applicant's conduct and character since the offense — are central. Employment verification (current pay stubs, employer letter confirming the position and tenure) demonstrates economic stability. Treatment records (counseling, substance-use treatment, mental-health care) demonstrate rehabilitation engagement. Educational credentials earned since the offense (degrees, certifications, licenses) demonstrate forward motion. Tax returns and proof of payment of any restitution demonstrate accountability. Each of these inputs is documented, indexed, and presented to the court as a single integrated record-sealing motion package.
Prosecutor opposition or non-opposition is the single most important predictor of outcome at the petition stage. A pre-filing meeting with the prosecuting attorney's office — explaining the basis for the petition, sharing the mitigation evidence, and asking the prosecutor either to stipulate to non-opposition or to identify the specific concerns that drive opposition — frequently moves contested cases to agreed orders. Where the prosecutor stipulates, the court typically grants the petition on a brief docket call without a substantive hearing. Where the prosecutor opposes, the judge weighs the State's objections against the defense's mitigation evidence at a contested hearing. The pre-filing conversation with the prosecutor is therefore often the decisive step in successful petition practice.
Petition procedure — filing, notice, hearing, order
The petition for nondisclosure is filed in the court of original jurisdiction, served on the prosecuting attorney, and set for hearing where required. The applicant must satisfy the eligibility criteria by sworn evidence and the court must make the best-interest-of-justice finding before signing the order.
The petition is filed under § 411.0725(c) in the court of original jurisdiction — the same court that entered the order placing the defendant on deferred adjudication. For Collin County dispositions, that is typically the 199th, 219th, 296th, 366th, 380th, 416th, 417th, or 470th Judicial District Court (felonies) or one of the Collin County Court at Law numbers 1-7 (misdemeanors). For Dallas County, the relevant district courts include the 195th, 203rd, 204th, 265th, 282nd, 283rd, 363rd, and others; the County Criminal Courts at Law 1-11 handle misdemeanors. Denton County uses the 16th, 158th, 211th, 367th, 393rd, 431st, 442nd, and 462nd District Courts and County Court at Law nos. 1-2. Tarrant County uses the 213th, 213A, 297th, 360th, 371st, 372nd, 396th, 432nd, and others. Identifying the correct court is the first procedural step and is fact-specific to where the original deferred-adjudication disposition was entered.
The petition must include the sworn statement of the applicant attesting to satisfaction of each statutory criterion: completion of deferred adjudication, satisfaction of the applicable waiting period under § 411.072, absence of any disqualifying conviction or deferred adjudication under §§ 411.0716, 411.071, or 411.074, and the basis for the best-interest-of-justice finding. Supporting documentation typically includes the original deferred-adjudication order, the dismissal-and-discharge order under CCP art. 42A.111, certified docket sheets demonstrating no intervening violations, and the mitigation packet (letters of support, employment verification, treatment records, tax returns, restitution-payment receipts where applicable). The filing fee under Local Government Code § 51.318 currently runs $28 plus court-specific add-ons in DFW counties.
Notice to the prosecuting attorney is required under § 411.0725(d). The petition must be served on the District Attorney's office (for felony courts) or the County Attorney/Criminal District Attorney's office (for misdemeanor courts) that originally prosecuted the case. The State has 15 days from service to respond — opposition, agreement to the order, or silence. Most DFW District Attorney's offices have dedicated nondisclosure-petition units that screen each petition for technical compliance and substantive objection; the unit's position frequently drives the practical outcome at the trial court. Where the prosecutor opposes, the petition is set for hearing; where the prosecutor does not oppose, many courts will sign the order on the papers without a hearing.
The hearing, where required, is a non-jury proceeding under § 411.0725(e). The applicant bears the burden of proof on each statutory criterion and on the best-interest-of-justice finding by a preponderance of the evidence. The defense typically presents the documentary mitigation packet, supplements with brief live testimony from the applicant and one or two supporting witnesses where appropriate, and argues each statutory criterion individually. The prosecutor presents the State's objections and any aggravating evidence. The court enters findings on the record, signs the order if the petition is granted, and transmits the order to the Texas Department of Public Safety under § 411.0725(f) — DPS then notifies the listed criminal-justice agencies to seal the relevant criminal-history records.
Effect of the order and § 411.075(d) 32 exceptions
A granted nondisclosure order seals the record from public view but preserves criminal-justice and licensing-agency access. Section 411.075(d) lists 32 entities that retain access — including law enforcement, the State Bar, educator and medical boards, and the Texas Department of Banking.
The granted nondisclosure order under § 411.0725 produces a structural shift in how the record is treated, but does not destroy the record. The criminal-history information remains in the relevant databases — DPS, county clerk, and Texas Department of Criminal Justice — but is marked as sealed for purposes of public disclosure. Private employers performing routine background checks, landlords running tenant screens, lenders and insurers, professional-association inquiries, news-media inquiries, and ordinary public-records requests will not see the sealed record. The applicant may, under § 411.075, lawfully deny the existence of the underlying offense in response to most private inquiries (subject to specific carve-outs for licensing applications and similar regulated contexts).
Section 411.075(d) preserves access for 32 enumerated entities. The list includes: the Department of Public Safety, federal criminal-justice agencies, county and municipal law enforcement agencies, prosecuting attorneys' offices, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, juvenile justice agencies, the State Bar of Texas, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the Comptroller of Public Accounts, the State Board for Educator Certification, the Texas Medical Board, the Texas Board of Nursing, the Texas Board of Dental Examiners, the Texas Board of Pharmacy, the State Securities Board, the Texas Department of Banking, the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending, the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner, the Texas Real Estate Commission, the Texas Department of Insurance, school districts, public junior colleges, and several others. The full list is in § 411.075(d) and is updated periodically by the Legislature.
The practical effect: a sealed record is hidden from private employers and landlords but visible to licensing authorities, law enforcement, and certain regulated employers. A nurse seeking license renewal will continue to disclose and discuss the underlying offense with the Texas Board of Nursing — the sealing order does not eliminate the licensing-board access. A teacher applying for certification will continue to address the offense with the State Board for Educator Certification. A securities representative seeking registration will continue to disclose to the State Securities Board. The 32 exceptions are not narrow technicalities; they include most of the major Texas occupational-licensing boards and most of the criminal-justice agencies, so applicants in regulated professions should understand the limits of sealing relief before assuming it eliminates collateral consequences across all contexts.
Federal databases are wholly outside the reach of a Texas nondisclosure order. The FBI maintains the Interstate Identification Index (III) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), populated by reports from state agencies including Texas DPS. Although Texas DPS will update its own records on receipt of a § 411.0725 order, the federal databases continue to reflect the underlying arrest and disposition as originally reported — and federal-employment background checks, federal-firearms-licensee inquiries under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), immigration consequences under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2), and federal-licensing matters will continue to surface the record. An applicant who requires record relief that reaches federal databases must pursue expunction under CCP Chapter 55 where eligible — the petition for nondisclosure is, by design, a Texas-state-only remedy.
Nondisclosure vs. expunction — sealing vs. destruction
Expunction under CCP Chapter 55 destroys the record and permits the applicant to deny the arrest entirely. Nondisclosure under § 411.0725 seals the record but preserves it for criminal-justice and licensing access. The eligibility universes are largely disjoint.
Expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55 and nondisclosure under Government Code Subchapter E-1 are distinct remedies operating on largely disjoint eligibility universes. Expunction destroys the record — the State physically removes the relevant entries from the DPS database, the court clerk's files, and the affected law-enforcement agency records. Following expunction, the applicant may lawfully deny the arrest ever occurred, except in narrow situations (testimony under oath in a criminal proceeding may require acknowledgement that the records have been expunged). Expunction is the more powerful remedy and the cleaner outcome.
Expunction is not available, however, for most successful deferred-adjudication completions. CCP Chapter 55 reaches arrests that did not result in conviction or deferred adjudication — typically dismissals, no-bills, acquittals, and arrests that were never prosecuted. A defendant whose case proceeded to deferred adjudication and resulted in a dismissal under CCP art. 42A.111 has not received an "acquittal" or a "dismissal" in the sense Chapter 55 contemplates — the deferred-adjudication route is, structurally, a guilty plea followed by a delayed dismissal contingent on supervision compliance, and the resulting disposition does not qualify for expunction under most subsections of CCP art. 55.01. Nondisclosure is the principal remedy for completed deferred adjudications because expunction is not available.
The eligibility universes therefore largely do not overlap. A defendant whose case was dismissed before any plea — for example, an arrest with no charge filed, an indictment that was no-billed, an information that was dismissed for evidentiary insufficiency — is generally eligible for expunction but not for nondisclosure (because nondisclosure requires a completed deferred-adjudication disposition). A defendant whose case proceeded to deferred adjudication and was successfully completed is generally eligible for nondisclosure but not for expunction. A defendant who was acquitted at trial is eligible for expunction. A defendant who was convicted is generally eligible for neither, with narrow exceptions under the SB 731 framework for specific Class A and B misdemeanor convictions under § 411.0735.
The practical implication for defense counsel: identify the disposition first, then identify the remedy. A pre-trial dismissal calls for expunction work; a successful deferred completion calls for petition-based or automatic nondisclosure (depending on the offense and the SB 731 categories); a conviction calls for the narrow SB 731 § 411.0735 path or no relief at all. Misidentifying the available remedy and filing the wrong motion produces a dismissed petition, a wasted filing fee, and a delay in obtaining relief — sometimes a substantive delay that pushes a client past employment-application or licensing deadlines that would have been met with the correct filing. The disposition-to-remedy mapping is foundational and must be confirmed at the intake stage.
Strategic considerations
Petition practice turns on disqualifier-screen precision, pre-filing prosecutor outreach, comprehensive mitigation packet preparation, and disposition-to-remedy mapping. The petition route is sensitive to judicial discretion and prosecutor opposition — meticulous preparation is the routine difference between granted and denied.
Disqualifier-screen precision is the foundational work product. Before filing any petition, defense counsel must run the applicant's complete criminal history through the § 411.074 screen — both the offense-type screen (capturing 3g aggravated offenses, family violence, sex offenses, certain weapons and intoxication offenses) and the criminal-history screen (capturing any prior or subsequent disqualifying conviction or deferred adjudication anywhere in the applicant's record, including out-of-state offenses translated to Texas equivalents). A miscalled disqualifier produces a petition that the prosecutor will move to dismiss as a matter of law — wasting the filing fee, alerting the State to the applicant's record, and leaving a denied-petition entry in the court file that future relief efforts must explain.
Pre-filing prosecutor outreach is the high-leverage strategic move. The District Attorney or County Criminal District Attorney's nondisclosure-petition unit handles a steady volume of petitions and develops standard responses to standard cases. A pre-filing call or meeting with the assigned prosecutor — explaining the basis for the petition, walking through the disqualifier-screen analysis, previewing the mitigation evidence, and asking either for non-opposition or for the specific concerns the State would raise — frequently converts a contested-hearing case into an agreed-order case. Many petitions are granted on agreed motions filed jointly with the State. The pre-filing outreach is also the moment to address technical-pleading concerns the prosecutor would otherwise raise at the hearing.
Mitigation packet preparation is the second-stage strategic investment. For petitions that will be contested or where prosecutor non-opposition is uncertain, the mitigation packet must be comprehensive enough to support the best-interest-of-justice finding on a contested record. The standard inputs: 3-6 letters of support from employers, family members, treatment providers, and community references, each addressing the applicant's conduct since the offense; employment verification (employer letter on letterhead confirming position, tenure, and supervisor recommendation); current pay stubs and tax returns demonstrating economic stability; treatment records (counseling, substance-use treatment, mental-health care) demonstrating rehabilitation engagement; educational credentials earned since the offense (degree certifications, professional licenses); and proof of restitution payment or any other court-ordered financial obligation completion.
Disposition-to-remedy mapping at intake is essential. The first 30 minutes of the initial consultation should identify the precise disposition of the underlying case — deferred adjudication (which subsection of CCP art. 42A; which dismissal-and-discharge order under art. 42A.111), straight probation (under art. 42A.052), a conviction with no probation, an acquittal, a dismissal at the prosecutorial stage, or a no-billed indictment. Each disposition class maps to a different available remedy (or to no available remedy). Misidentifying the disposition produces the wrong filing — an expunction petition when nondisclosure was needed, a § 411.0725 petition when automatic § 411.0735 sealing would have applied without filing, or a doomed motion to seal a conviction that has no statutory sealing remedy.
Out-of-state criminal history requires translation to Texas equivalents. The § 411.074 disqualifier screen captures any prior or subsequent disqualifying conviction or deferred adjudication anywhere — out-of-state offenses must be translated to the closest Texas Penal Code equivalent and screened against the § 411.074 list. A common error: assuming that a Colorado misdemeanor possession-of-marijuana disposition has no impact on Texas nondisclosure eligibility, when in fact a similar offense disposition in Texas would not be a § 411.074 disqualifier (so the assumption is correct in this case but for the wrong reason). A more dangerous error: assuming that an out-of-state family-violence disposition does not trigger the § 411.074(a)(2) family-violence disqualifier — it does, and counsel must verify the equivalency analysis before promising eligibility.
