Texas aggravated sexual assault defense

What is aggravated sexual assault under PC § 22.021?

Texas Penal Code § 22.021 defines aggravated sexual assault as sexual assault under § 22.011 plus at least one statutory aggravator from § 22.021(a)(2). It is a first-degree felony (5–99 years or life, up to $10,000), and a 3g offense with no probation eligibility.

Underlying sexual assault (§ 22.011)

The State must first prove the elements of sexual assault under PC § 22.011 — non-consensual penetration of the sexual organ, anus, or mouth by any means, or contact between the mouth/sex organ of one person and the sexual organ of another without consent. The "without consent" requirement is itself definitional under § 22.011(b) and includes 11 separate statutory consent-vitiation theories: force, threats, intoxication, unconscious, mental disease/defect, victim under statutory age, and others.

Aggravator from § 22.021(a)(2)

At least one of eight enumerated aggravators must accompany the sexual-assault conduct: (i) serious bodily injury or attempted death; (ii) threats of death, SBI, or kidnapping against any person; (iii) use or exhibition of a deadly weapon; (iv) acting in concert with another in the same criminal episode; (v) administration of an intoxicating substance to facilitate the assault; (vi) victim is younger than 14; (vii) victim is 65 or older; or (viii) victim is a disabled individual. Multiple aggravators can stack but do not multiply punishment beyond the first-degree ceiling.

Mental state — intentional or knowing

Sexual assault under § 22.011 requires intentional or knowing conduct as to penetration or contact. For the aggravator elements, the culpable mental state varies by aggravator — deadly-weapon use requires knowing exhibition; victim-age aggravators historically did not require knowledge of age (strict liability as to age under Vasquez v. State, 622 S.W.2d 864 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981)). The defense must analyze each aggravator separately for its applicable mens rea.

First-degree felony classification

Aggravated sexual assault is classified at the first-degree level under § 22.021(e), making the base punishment range 5 to 99 years or life imprisonment plus a fine up to $10,000 (§ 12.32). The § 22.021(f) "super-aggravator" subsections raise the floor to 25 years when the victim is under 6, or when the victim is under 14 and certain aggravators apply — moving the case from a 5-year floor to a 25-year floor with parole barred until 25 calendar years served.

The aggravator structure of § 22.021(a)(2) is the indictment's center of gravity. Every aggravated case turns first on whether the State can prove the aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt — because without an aggravator, the offense drops to non-aggravated sexual assault under § 22.011 (still a second-degree felony, but with a 2-to-20-year range and parole eligibility at one-half time served rather than 25 calendar years). Defense work routinely targets the aggravator element as the highest-leverage attack surface: if the State proves sexual assault but fails to prove the aggravator, the verdict downgrades to a second-degree felony and the sentence floor falls from 25 years to 2 years.

The "super-aggravator" provisions in § 22.021(f) are a separate analysis from § 22.021(a)(2). Subsection (f)(1) requires the State to plead and prove that the victim was younger than 6 — triggering the 25-year minimum sentence. Subsection (f)(2) requires the State to plead and prove that the victim was younger than 14 in combination with serious bodily injury, attempted death, kidnapping, or threats of death/SBI/kidnapping — also triggering the 25-year minimum. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that the super-aggravator must be alleged in the indictment and submitted to the jury — Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and the Texas application — because it raises the statutory minimum and ceiling.

Outcry witness and CAC interview reliability

Most aggravated sexual assault prosecutions of children rely on two evidentiary pillars: an art. 38.072 outcry-witness statement and a Children's Advocacy Center forensic interview. Both are subject to specific predicate requirements that, when challenged, can substantially weaken the State's case.

The outcry witness doctrine under Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.072 is a narrow statutory hearsay exception. The first adult (18 or older) other than the defendant to whom the child described the alleged offense may testify to that statement at trial. The State must serve 14-day pretrial notice identifying the outcry witness and providing a written summary of the statement, and the trial court must hold a hearing outside the jury's presence to determine whether the statement is reliable based on its time, content, and circumstances. Sanchez v. State, 354 S.W.3d 476 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011), held that the reliability inquiry under art. 38.072 § 2(b)(2) must focus on the circumstances of the statement itself, not on the child's credibility generally.

Outcry-predicate challenges often turn on who qualifies as the "first" adult. Rodgers v. State, 442 S.W.3d 547 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2014), held that a witness who hears only that "something happened" — without descriptive detail — is not the outcry witness; the statute requires "more than words which give a general allusion that something in the area of child abuse was going on." Defense counsel maps every adult conversation chronologically: school counselor, teacher, parent, grandparent, friend, CPS investigator, CAC interviewer. The witness the State designates may be the second or third in the chain — and if so, the prior witness's testimony is excluded as inadmissible hearsay and the State's narrative is meaningfully degraded.

The CAC interview is the second pillar. CAC interviewers are trained on the National Children's Alliance forensic interview protocol, which requires open-ended, non-leading questions, narrative practice ("tell me about a time when..."), and avoidance of repeated suggestive questioning. Defense work obtains the full recorded interview, the interviewer's notes, the interviewer's training records, and the CAC's operational protocol. The interview is reviewed for suggestive technique (closed-ended questions, leading prompts, body-language reinforcement), prior contamination (whether the child had been interviewed previously by parents, teachers, or CPS before the CAC session), and consistency with the outcry statement and any forensic findings.

Child-witness reliability is a developmental analysis informed by the suggestibility research — Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805 (1990), and the broader empirical literature (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). Children under 7 are more suggestible; younger children may incorporate post-event information into their accounts after repeated questioning; and source-monitoring errors are common across all child ages. Where the defense has retained a forensic-interview expert (Dr. Bruce Frumkin, Dr. Daniel Reisberg, and others have testified in Texas cases), the expert critiques the CAC interview against published standards and presents the jury with a research-based framework for evaluating reliability — without ever opining on the ultimate truth of the allegation, which would be prohibited under Rule 702(c).

Penalty range, super-aggravator floor , and 3g restrictions

Texas aggravated sexual assault carries a 5-to-99-year (or life) range plus $10,000 fine — but the § 22.021(f) super-aggravator raises the floor to 25 years when the victim is under 6 or under 14 (with companion aggravators). As a 3g offense, no probation is available; parole eligibility is delayed to 25 calendar years for the super-aggravated cases.

The base first-degree range applies to every aggravated sexual assault: 5 to 99 years or life, plus a fine up to $10,000 under PC § 12.32.^[1] When the § 22.021(f)(1) super-aggravator applies (victim under 6 at the time of the offense), the minimum jumps to 25 years and the maximum remains life.^[2] When § 22.021(f)(2) applies (victim under 14 plus serious bodily injury, attempted death, kidnapping, or threats of death/SBI/kidnapping), the same 25-year floor applies. These floors are mandatory — the judge has no discretion to go below them once the jury finds the predicate facts.

Aggravated sexual assault is enumerated as a "3g" aggravated offense under Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.054(a)(2).^[4] The 3g designation produces three independent consequences. First, judge-ordered community supervision (straight probation) is statutorily unavailable — only the jury can recommend probation, and only if the sentence imposed is 10 years or less, which is impossible when the § 22.021(f) floor is 25 years. Second, deferred adjudication is also unavailable under art. 42A.102(b)(2). Third, parole eligibility is computed under the more restrictive Gov. Code § 508.145 rules rather than the standard one-quarter-time calculation.

Parole eligibility on aggravated sexual assault sentences is calculated under Gov. Code § 508.145. The base 3g rule under § 508.145(d) requires service of one-half of the sentence imposed without consideration of good-conduct time, capped at 30 calendar years.^[3] But for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, § 508.145(a) imposes a hard 25-calendar-year floor before any parole consideration — meaning a 25-year minimum sentence translates to 25 full calendar years served, day-for-day, before the inmate is even eligible for parole consideration. For longer sentences (40 years, 60 years, life), the 25-year minimum still applies as a floor; the half-time calculation then applies if it exceeds 25 years.

Sex-offender registration under Code Crim. Proc. Chapter 62 is mandatory for the lifetime of the defendant. Aggravated sexual assault is a Tier 3 offense under art. 62.001(5)(A) and requires annual in-person verification (quarterly for SVPs designated under Health & Safety Code Chapter 841). Registration includes name, photo, address, employer, vehicle, school, and online identifiers in the public DPS database. Residency restrictions (no living within 500–1,000 feet of schools, daycares, parks — varies by county and city ordinance), employment restrictions, and travel-notification duties apply. Early termination of registration is unavailable for Tier 3 offenses under art. 62.404 — a lifetime designation in practice.

Collateral consequences extend far beyond the criminal sentence. Permanent loss of voting rights during incarceration and supervision (Texas Election Code § 11.002); permanent firearm prohibition under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); immigration consequences (aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(A), which is also a "crime of violence" and a sex-offense ground of deportability under § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii)); permanent professional licensing bars (medical, legal, educational, real estate); and lifetime ineligibility for many forms of public housing, public employment, and federal student aid. The conviction itself — not merely incarceration — produces the practical permanent disabling of civic and economic life.

Defenses we evaluate first

Aggravated sexual assault defense works on multiple parallel tracks: contesting aggravator elements to drop to non-aggravated, challenging DNA evidence, attacking outcry and CAC reliability, and asserting consent in adult cases. Romeo-and-Juliet does not apply.

The single highest-leverage defensive move is the aggravator-element challenge. The State must prove every § 22.021(a)(2) aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt; if the jury finds the underlying sexual assault but cannot find the aggravator, the verdict is non-aggravated sexual assault under § 22.011 — a second-degree felony with a 2-to-20-year range and standard parole eligibility. That is a 23-year drop in floor on a super-aggravated case. Counsel scrutinizes the indictment for each pleaded aggravator and litigates the evidentiary basis: was a deadly weapon actually used and exhibited, or merely possessed; was the alleged bodily injury "serious" within § 1.07(a)(46) or only ordinary; was the threat communicated and credible; can the State prove the victim's age beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence (birth certificate, DNA paternity record, school records).

The consent defense applies only in adult cases under § 22.021 — and only with extreme caution. Where the complainant is 14 or older and no other aggravator forecloses consent (deadly weapon, serious bodily injury, threats), consent is a defense to the underlying sexual-assault element. The defense is not available where the victim is under the age of consent (statutory rape via the age-under-14 aggravator or age-under-17 sexual assault under § 22.011(a)(2)). The Texas Romeo-and-Juliet defense — codified at PC § 22.011(e) — is available for sexual assault of a 14-to-16-year-old by a defendant who is no more than 3 years older. It does NOT apply to aggravated sexual assault under § 22.021. The § 22.021 statute contains no Romeo-and-Juliet carve-out; counsel must not advise this defense in aggravated cases.

DNA-evidence challenges in aggravated sexual assault cases are a specialty practice. Counsel litigates chain of custody from collection through analysis, sample preservation and storage protocols, laboratory accreditation under the Texas Forensic Science Commission, analyst certification, mixed-sample interpretation (especially low-template DNA and mixtures with three or more contributors), and Y-STR vs. autosomal testing. The 2017 Texas Forensic Science Commission report on mixture-interpretation in older cases — and the resulting CODIS-match audits — opened a window for post-conviction DNA challenges that occasionally translates into pretrial leverage. Probabilistic-genotyping software (STRmix, TrueAllele) interpretation requires Daubert/Kelly scrutiny under Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992), and we challenge the software's underlying methodology, version, and parameter settings.

Outcry-witness predicate challenges leverage the technical requirements of art. 38.072. If the State's designated outcry witness was not the first adult to whom the child described the offense, the testimony is inadmissible under Rodgers and the State must re-designate or proceed without it. Even where the designation is correct, the trial court's reliability finding under art. 38.072 § 2(b)(2) is subject to challenge — and on appeal under Sanchez, the appellate court reviews whether the trial court's reliability inquiry focused on the statement's circumstances rather than the child's general credibility. CAC interview suggestiveness ties directly to the reliability assessment — a CAC conducted between the outcry and trial that contaminated the child's memory can undermine the reliability of the original outcry statement.

Identification challenges arise in stranger-perpetrator cases where the State relies on a complaining witness's description or photo lineup. Counsel litigates the lineup procedure under Loserth v. State, 985 S.W.2d 536 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1998), and the Texas Eyewitness Identification Act (Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.20), which requires written law-enforcement policy on lineup administration. Cross-racial identification, suggestive lineup composition, post-identification feedback, and the time elapsed between offense and identification are all examined. Where the lineup was suggestive and the in-court ID is at risk of taint, a pretrial Wade hearing (United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967)) can result in suppression of the identification.

False-allegation analysis is fact-intensive and varies dramatically between child cases (where the focus is on outcry, CAC, and suggestibility) and adult cases (where the focus is on motive — divorce, custody, immigration, civil litigation, personal animus). In every case, prior-allegation discovery under Brady, Texas Rule 614, and art. 39.14(h) is litigated aggressively; the State must disclose any prior false-allegation history known to it. Lopez v. State, 18 S.W.3d 220 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000), addressed admissibility under Rule 412 (rape-shield) of the complainant's prior false allegations of sexual assault — admissible as bias/motive evidence in narrow circumstances. The defense investigates social media, school discipline records (with subpoena and protective orders as needed), and prior CPS history.

Common prosecution errors in aggravated sex-crimes cases

The State's typical errors in aggravated sexual assault prosecutions cluster around CAC-interview suggestiveness, outcry-predicate failures, DNA contamination and mixture-interpretation overreach, weak corroboration in child cases, and incomplete Brady disclosures on prior-allegation history.

A pattern emerges across DFW aggravated sex-crimes dockets — prosecutors err in five reliable categories that defense counsel must aggressively exploit. First, defective CAC interviews. The State's expectation is that the CAC interview will be a clean, non-suggestive forensic record. In practice, interviewers vary widely in protocol adherence — leading questions, repeated questioning, body-language reinforcement, and prior-information contamination are common. Counsel obtains the full recorded interview, the interviewer's training records, the CAC's written operational protocol, and the interviewer's prior-case history. A retained forensic-interview expert critiques the recording against the NCA protocol and presents the jury with a structured, research-based critique under Rule 702.

Second, outcry-witness predicate failures. Prosecutors routinely designate a parent, teacher, or CAC interviewer as the outcry witness without first mapping the conversation history. Defense work reconstructs the chronology — every adult to whom the child spoke about the alleged offense in temporal sequence, in any context. The designated witness must be the first in that chronology to receive a description meeting the Rodgers standard ("more than words which give a general allusion that something in the area of child abuse was going on"). When the State's designation is wrong, the outcry testimony is excluded — and with it often the State's most jury-impacting evidence.

Third, DNA contamination and mixture-interpretation overreach. The State's forensic-lab evidence is frequently presented as more definitive than the underlying data supports. Low-template DNA, mixed samples with three or more contributors, and stochastic effects all degrade the inferential strength of a match. Probabilistic-genotyping software (STRmix, TrueAllele) outputs likelihood ratios that prosecutors sometimes round upward or present without adequate Daubert/Kelly predicate. The Texas Forensic Science Commission has issued multiple advisories on mixture-interpretation; defense counsel tracks these and uses them in cross-examination of the State's DNA analyst.

Fourth, weak corroboration in child cases. Texas law does not require corroboration of a child complainant's testimony under Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.07 — a single child's testimony, if believed, can sustain a conviction. But the absence of corroboration is fertile cross-examination territory: no physical injury, no DNA, no witnesses to the alleged conduct, inconsistencies between outcry and CAC interview, inconsistencies between CAC interview and trial testimony, delayed reporting, and lack of behavioral indicators all undermine credibility. The defense's narrative is not that the child is lying — it is that the child's account is unreliable for identifiable, research-supported reasons.

Fifth, missing prior-false-allegation discovery. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Texas Code Crim. Proc. art. 39.14(h) require the State to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence in its possession. Prior false-allegation history of the complainant — known to CPS, prior law enforcement, prior counsel, or prior school discipline — is impeachment material that the State often fails to disclose, sometimes because no one in the prosecution chain has affirmatively investigated. A specific written Brady demand under art. 39.14(h) early in the case, followed by an in-camera review motion if the State pleads ignorance, frequently produces material that changes the case posture.

What to do if you're charged with aggravated sexual assault

You are facing a capital-life-exposure case. The first 15 days determine the trajectory of the next 12–24 months. Absolutely no statements; engage counsel within hours; preserve all digital evidence; no contact with the complainant or family; assess competency and mental health.

First and absolute rule: do not give a statement under any circumstance. Texas county jails record every outgoing call — recordings are admissible as party-opponent admissions under Texas Rule of Evidence 801(e)(2). Jail-cell calls to family ("I didn't do anything; I was just trying to help her"), booking-room conversations with deputies, and informal interviews by detectives are routinely the State's strongest evidence in aggravated sexual assault cases. The Fifth Amendment privilege applies from the moment of arrest forward — invoke it explicitly ("I want to speak with a lawyer; I am invoking my right to remain silent") and stay silent thereafter, even after a lawyer is appointed and you feel you can "explain." There is no explanation that helps; every word can hurt.

Second, engage counsel within hours of arrest. A 25-year-to-life exposure case is not a public-defender-at-the-first-setting case. Specialized aggravated sex-crimes defense is a narrow practice; not every criminal defense lawyer is equipped for the forensic-interview cross-examination, DNA-mixture Daubert practice, and outcry-witness predicate litigation this category requires. Engage counsel before bond is set if possible — a counseled bond hearing produces materially better bond conditions than an uncounseled one, and bond is materially harder to renegotiate downward later.

Third, preserve all digital evidence. Text messages, social-media DMs, photos with timestamps and geolocation, call records, financial records (bank, Venmo, Cashapp), and surveillance footage from any premises involved must be preserved immediately. Many of these systems overwrite on 30–90 day cycles. A written preservation-letter campaign — directed to phone carriers, ISPs, social-media platforms, business surveillance operators — locks the evidence in retention pending litigation. Without it, the most exonerating evidence (a text from the complainant after the alleged event saying "I had fun"; a Venmo transaction inconsistent with the allegation; a video showing the defendant elsewhere at the alleged time) may be permanently lost.

Fourth, no contact with the complainant, the complainant's family, or any witness. No phone calls, no texts, no social-media messages, no third-party intermediaries. Any contact — even an apology, even a denial, even a question — is admissible as consciousness-of-guilt evidence and can independently support a separate Retaliation charge under PC § 36.06 or a Tampering-with-a-Witness charge under § 36.05. Most bond orders impose a no-contact condition explicitly; even where one is not yet ordered, treat the rule as absolute.

Fifth, mental-health and competency assessment when warranted. If the defendant has a history of mental illness, intellectual disability, autism-spectrum diagnosis, or current acute distress, a competency evaluation under Code Crim. Proc. art. 46B.005 should be obtained early. Competency to stand trial is a different question from sanity at the time of offense; both can be relevant to defense strategy and to mitigation at any later sentencing. Where the defendant is on prescription psychotropic medication, counsel coordinates with treating providers to ensure jail medical staff continues medication — disruption of psychiatric medication in custody can produce decompensation that complicates every aspect of the case.

Sixth, document everything you can about the period of the alleged offense. Where were you; who were you with; what receipts, GPS records, cell-tower data, surveillance footage, or third-party witnesses can place you elsewhere or contradict the State's timeline. Memory degrades; corroboration sources disappear. Counsel runs the alibi investigation in the first weeks of representation because that is when the records are still retrievable and the witnesses still locatable.

DFW-specific context (Collin, Denton, Dallas, Tarrant)

Each DFW county handles aggravated sex-crimes prosecutions with specialized units, CAC-coordinated child-victim cases, and aggressive plea posture. The 3g designation removes plea-bargaining flexibility on probation, focusing negotiation entirely on charge level and sentence length.

Collin County prosecutes aggravated sex-crimes through the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Division of the Collin County Criminal District Attorney's Office in McKinney. Child-complainant cases are coordinated with the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County, with CAC interviewers serving as outcry/forensic witnesses at trial. The county's grand-jury referral rate on aggravated sex-crimes cases is high; bonds at magistration are typically aggressive ($100,000–$500,000 on first-degree cases with child complainants, higher on super-aggravator allegations). Pretrial motion practice is the primary defense leverage point — the office's plea posture is firm pre-motion-rulings, materially softer post-rulings that affect outcry or CAC admissibility.

Denton County handles aggravated sex-crimes through the DA's Child Abuse Section in Denton, coordinating with the Children's Advocacy Center of Denton County (Patsy's House). The county's bond posture is similar to Collin's on first-degree cases. Denton's grand-jury process moves quickly on aggravated child-victim cases — counsel must complete the investigation and present any pre-indictment defense submission within 30–60 days of arrest to have realistic impact. Post-indictment, the office is willing to negotiate sentence length significantly when the suppression record or expert work has degraded the State's evidentiary position, but rarely negotiates down from § 22.021 to § 22.011 (i.e., from aggravated to non-aggravated) without strong record support.

Dallas County operates the largest specialized child-abuse and sex-crimes prosecution unit in DFW, with vertical prosecutors who carry the case from intake through trial. The Dallas Children's Advocacy Center coordinates CAC interviews and SANE examinations for the county. Dallas's sheer caseload volume produces some structural willingness to negotiate — particularly on charge-level reduction to non-aggravated when the aggravator is contestable — but the office is firm on lifetime registration cases. Specialty courts (mental health, veterans) are unavailable for aggravated sex-crimes. Dallas County District Courts handle these cases at the 195th, 282nd, 283rd, 291st, 292nd, 363rd, and other criminal districts; case assignment is by random docket draw.

Tarrant County prosecutes aggravated sex-crimes through the Child Sexual Abuse and Sexual Assault Sections of the Tarrant County Criminal DA's Office in Fort Worth. The Alliance for Children (Tarrant's CAC) coordinates child-victim interviews. Tarrant's plea posture is in the middle of the DFW range — firmer than Dallas on charge-level negotiation but more flexible than Collin or Denton on sentence-length compromise when the defense has built a credible suppression and expert record. The Tim Curry Justice Center handles felony aggravated cases at the criminal district courts (213th, 297th, 371st, 372nd, 396th, 432nd). Across all four counties, the 25-year super-aggravator floor under § 22.021(f) eliminates plea-bargaining latitude on sentence — counsel's leverage must focus on charge-level reduction to non-aggravated, or on jury-trial outcomes including lesser-included offenses.

Cost and outcome expectations

Aggravated sexual assault defense fees run $25,000–$75,000+ for typical cases; super-aggravated child-victim cases run $50,000–$150,000+. Expert costs are substantial. Timelines range 12–24 months. Outcome distribution is harder to generalize because every case is severity-specific.

Defense fees scale with case complexity, but the floor is significantly higher than non-aggravated cases. A baseline aggravated sexual assault defense — adult complainant, single aggravator, contestable DNA or identification, no super-aggravator — runs $25,000–$50,000 flat-fee for full pretrial and trial representation. Child-complainant cases with CAC interview, outcry-witness, and forensic-interview expert work move the range to $40,000–$75,000. Super-aggravated cases (victim under 6 or under 14 with companion aggravator) where the State has DNA, multiple witnesses, and a strong CAC record run $50,000–$150,000+, particularly when trial-ready defense — fully prepared for a 2-to-3-week jury trial with expert testimony, motion practice, and the full investigative workup — is required.

Expert costs are independent of attorney fees and typically substantial. A forensic-interview expert (Frumkin, Reisberg, Underwager, others) runs $5,000–$15,000 for case review and trial testimony. A DNA expert runs $7,500–$25,000 for review of the State's lab work, independent retesting, mixture-interpretation analysis, and Daubert testimony. A psychiatric or psychological expert for competency, sanity, or mitigation runs $5,000–$15,000. A polygrapher (used primarily as a strategic investigative tool, not as admissible trial evidence in Texas) runs $500–$1,500. Investigator fees for alibi work, social-media subpoena practice, and witness location run $5,000–$25,000 depending on case scope.

Timeline expectations: a contested aggravated sexual assault case takes 12 to 24 months from indictment to trial or plea disposition. The grand-jury phase runs 30–90 days post-arrest. Indictment is followed by 6–12 months of Article 39.14 discovery, motion practice, expert retention and review, and pretrial hearings. Trial readiness typically occurs at month 12–18; trial settings frequently reset once or twice before going. Trial itself runs 1–3 weeks for non-super-aggravated cases, 2–4 weeks for super-aggravated. Post-trial motions and appeals add another 12–24 months. Plea-disposition cases resolve faster (8–14 months) but with the 3g restriction the floor is still meaningful prison time on a guilty plea.

Outcome distribution in aggravated sexual assault is severity-driven and harder to generalize than DWI or theft cases. Typical patterns: a meaningful fraction of cases (perhaps 15–25%) resolve by charge reduction to non-aggravated sexual assault under § 22.011 — a 2-to-20-year range with parole eligibility at one-half time, transforming the case from 25-year floor to 2-year floor. A smaller fraction (perhaps 5–15%) resolve by dismissal or no-bill at grand jury, typically driven by Brady disclosures, DNA exclusion, recantation, or fatal outcry-predicate failures. A majority resolve by plea — usually at the lower end of the punishment range when the suppression and expert record has been built, at the middle when the record is mixed, and at the upper end where the State's case is strong and the defense record is weak. Trial outcomes vary widely with case strength and jury composition; aggravated sexual assault trials in DFW counties have a higher acquittal rate than capital trials but a lower acquittal rate than non-aggravated cases.

The cost-most-clients-underestimate is the post-conviction collateral consequence. Even on the lowest available outcome (charge reduction to § 22.011 plus a low-end plea), the conviction triggers Tier 3 sex-offender registration (lifetime), permanent firearm prohibition under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), immigration consequences for non-citizens, professional license action, employment restrictions, residency restrictions, and travel limitations. Defense strategy must factor in the lifetime registration consequence at every plea-vs-trial decision — a 5-year plea with lifetime registration is not better than a 10-year sentence after acquittal-track trial when the registration consequences are weighed properly. The strategic frame is therefore not "minimize sentence length" but "minimize lifetime disability" — which sometimes means going to trial on a case that the cold odds suggest pleading.