What is aggravated robbery under PC § 29.03?
Texas Penal Code § 29.03 defines aggravated robbery as committing robbery under § 29.02 plus one of three aggravators: serious bodily injury, use or exhibition of a deadly weapon, or a victim 65 or older or disabled. It is a 1st-degree felony — 5 to 99 years or life plus a fine up to $10,000.
- Element 1 — Underlying robbery under § 29.02
- The State must first prove every element of § 29.02 robbery: that in the course of committing theft under § 31.03 and with intent to obtain or maintain control of property, the defendant (a) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly caused bodily injury to another, or (b) intentionally or knowingly threatened or placed another in fear of imminent bodily injury or death. The completion of the underlying theft is not required — § 29.01(3) defines "in the course of committing theft" to include conduct in the attempt or in immediate flight. Lawton v. State, 913 S.W.2d 542 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995), construes this nexus element broadly.
- Element 2(a) — Caused serious bodily injury (§ 29.03(a)(1))
- The first aggravator. Serious bodily injury under § 1.07(a)(46) means injury creating a substantial risk of death, death itself, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ. Treating physicians and ER records are routinely contested; defense-retained physicians frequently dispute the severity classification. Moore v. State, 739 S.W.2d 347 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987), governs sufficiency review of SBI findings — the substantial-risk-of-death prong does not require near-death; it requires evidence the injury, by its nature, created a meaningful risk.
- Element 2(b) — Used or exhibited a deadly weapon (§ 29.03(a)(2))
- The most common aggravator in DFW practice. "Used" under Patterson v. State, 769 S.W.2d 938 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989), means employed for any purpose that facilitates the offense — including merely possessing a firearm on one's person to embolden the threat. "Exhibited" means consciously showing or displaying the weapon. The deadly weapon need not be operable; a firearm appearing genuine satisfies the element. Tyra v. State, 897 S.W.2d 796 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995), addresses use during the course of robbery; Earls v. State, 707 S.W.2d 82 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1986), addresses the exhibition of a firearm.
- Element 2(c) — Victim 65 or older or disabled (§ 29.03(a)(3))
- The third aggravator. A victim "65 years of age or older" is determined by chronological age at the time of the offense — proof typically comes from driver's license, birth certificate, or testimony. A "disabled person" is defined in § 22.04(c) as an individual with one or more substantial impairments, including physical or mental conditions and any condition substantially limiting one or more major life activities, or older than 13 and unable to care for himself due to a developmental disability. This aggravator does not require knowledge — the State need not prove the defendant knew the victim was 65+ or disabled, only that the victim met that status objectively.
- Penalty under § 12.32 — 1st-degree felony range
- Conviction carries a punishment range of 5 to 99 years or life in TDCJ plus an optional fine up to $10,000. The range is identical to murder under § 19.02. Aggravated robbery is enumerated under Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.054(b)(5) as a 3g aggravated offense — judge-ordered community supervision is unavailable; jury-recommended probation requires no prior felony plus an assessed sentence of 10 years or less; and parole eligibility runs under Gov't Code § 508.145(d) (the lesser of one-half the sentence or 30 calendar years actual time, with no good-conduct credit). These collateral consequences alone routinely drive negotiation toward an underlying § 29.02 robbery plea where the facts permit.
Aggravated robbery is structurally a robbery plus an aggravator — but the aggravator is what does the legal work and what drives the trial. Three discrete pathways to a 1st-degree felony coexist in § 29.03(a)(1)-(3): a serious-bodily-injury pathway, a deadly-weapon-use-or-exhibition pathway, and an elderly-or-disabled-victim pathway. The State picks which pathway (or pathways) to charge based on the facts, but the indictment often pleads two or three in the alternative. Each pathway has its own proof burden and its own contested elements, and the defense strategy must match the pathway the State has elected to push at trial.
The deadly-weapon-use-or-exhibition pathway is by far the most common in DFW prosecutions. Convenience-store robberies with handguns, late-night carjackings, and home-invasion robberies all proceed under § 29.03(a)(2). The State must prove the defendant either "used" or "exhibited" the deadly weapon during the course of the robbery — and under Patterson v. State, 769 S.W.2d 938 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989), the line between the two is consequential for charging but typically not for outcome: both satisfy the aggravator. The deadly weapon must satisfy the § 1.07(a)(17) definition — firearm per se under subsection (A), or anything capable of causing death or serious bodily injury in the manner of use or intended use under subsection (B). A pellet gun, BB gun, or replica firearm has produced split outcomes depending on the manner of use and the trial record.
The serious-bodily-injury pathway under § 29.03(a)(1) reaches cases where no weapon was displayed but the victim was beaten severely enough to satisfy the § 1.07(a)(46) definition. This pathway is harder for the State to prove — the medical evidence must show substantial risk of death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss of bodily function. Defense-retained physicians frequently challenge the State's severity classification, and a successful challenge moves the case from § 29.03 (1st-degree, 5-99) to § 29.02 (2nd-degree, 2-20). The elderly-or-disabled-victim pathway under § 29.03(a)(3) is the least common but the most procedurally distinct — no knowledge requirement, no severity threshold, just objective victim status.
Elements the State must prove and mens rea
Aggravated robbery is a result-of-conduct offense layered on top of robbery. The mens rea for the underlying theft is "with intent to obtain or maintain control of property," and the mens rea for the assaultive conduct is intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury, or intentionally or knowingly threatening imminent harm.
The mens-rea structure of § 29.03 is layered. The defendant must (1) act with intent to obtain or maintain control of property under § 31.03 — the theft predicate — and (2) for the assaultive conduct under § 29.02(a)(1) act intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly in causing bodily injury, or (2-alt) under § 29.02(a)(2) intentionally or knowingly threaten or place the victim in fear of imminent bodily injury or death. For the aggravator under § 29.03, no separate mens rea is required for the SBI prong (the result element attaches to the underlying conduct) nor for the deadly-weapon prong (the use or exhibition is itself the act). The elderly-or-disabled-victim prong is a pure status element with no mens rea — the State need not prove the defendant knew of the victim's status.
This layered structure creates targeted defense opportunities. A defendant who used force to escape rather than to take property may not satisfy the § 29.01(1) "in the course of committing theft" requirement — though under Lawton v. State, 913 S.W.2d 542 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995), the Court of Criminal Appeals has construed that nexus broadly to include immediate flight. A defendant who threatened force but never intended to take property — perhaps the encounter was a personal dispute that the State has recharacterized as a robbery — may not satisfy the theft predicate at all. And a defendant who caused bodily injury recklessly rather than intentionally still satisfies § 29.02(a)(1), but the recklessness narrative may pair with other defense theories on sentencing.
Identification mens rea is implicit but operationally central. The State must prove this defendant was the perpetrator. Eyewitness-identification challenges drive a substantial share of aggravated-robbery defense practice — convenience-store surveillance footage of varying quality, lineup procedures contested under Manson v. Brathwaite and Texas authority, expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification under Tillman v. State, 354 S.W.3d 425 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011), and cross-racial-identification literature. Where the State's case rests on a stranger's identification of a defendant from a brief, stressful encounter, the defense often invests heavily in identification expert work.
Party-liability theories under § 7.02 are independently consequential. The State frequently charges aggravated robbery on a party-liability theory — the defendant did not personally use the deadly weapon, but he aided and abetted a co-defendant who did. Maldonado v. State, 998 S.W.2d 239 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999), addresses aiding-and-abetting liability in robbery prosecutions. The party-liability instruction allows conviction where the defendant solicited, encouraged, directed, aided, or attempted to aid the other person in committing the offense, acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense. A defendant convicted as a party faces the same 1st-degree felony exposure as the principal. The defense work in party-liability cases focuses on demonstrating absence of the intent-to-promote element — mere presence at the scene is not enough.
The three aggravators — deadly weapon, SBI, and elderly/disabled victim
Section 29.03(a)(1)-(3) enumerates three independent aggravators. The deadly-weapon pathway is the most-charged in DFW practice and turns on the Patterson "used" vs. "exhibited" framework. SBI requires substantial risk of death; the elderly/disabled aggravator is a pure status element with no knowledge requirement.
The deadly-weapon aggravator under § 29.03(a)(2) is the single most-litigated issue in aggravated-robbery practice. Two cases anchor the analysis. Patterson v. State, 769 S.W.2d 938 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989), drew the distinction between "used" and "exhibited" — a weapon is "used" when employed for any purpose facilitating the offense; "exhibited" when consciously shown or displayed. The Court of Criminal Appeals later clarified in Coleman v. State, 145 S.W.3d 649 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004), that a deadly-weapon finding is affirmed where the record contains any evidence from which a rational jury could conclude the defendant used or exhibited a deadly weapon during the commission of the aggravated robbery. Tyra v. State, 897 S.W.2d 796 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995), extended the analysis to use during the course of robbery, including immediate flight.
The "deadly weapon" definition under § 1.07(a)(17) creates a category of cases that turn on the manner of use rather than the inherent nature of the object. A firearm satisfies subsection (A) per se — manifestly designed to inflict death or serious bodily injury — and a firearm need not be operable to qualify. A knife, club, or vehicle qualifies under subsection (B) only if the manner of its use or intended use makes it capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. Texas courts have found pellet guns, BB guns, and replica firearms to be deadly weapons in some manner-of-use circumstances and not in others. Earls v. State, 707 S.W.2d 82 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1986), addresses the exhibition of a firearm where the firearm was merely tucked in the defendant's waistband but the victim was put in fear of imminent death.
The serious-bodily-injury aggravator under § 29.03(a)(1) demands medical evidence of substantial risk of death, death itself (in which case the case is murder/capital murder, not aggravated robbery), serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of bodily function. The substantial-risk-of-death prong is the most-contested. Moore v. State, 739 S.W.2d 347 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987), holds that SBI does not require the victim almost died; it requires evidence the injury, by its nature, created a substantial risk. Defense-retained emergency physicians and trauma surgeons frequently challenge the State's classification — distinguishing significant bruising or laceration from injuries genuinely creating substantial risk of death. A successful SBI challenge moves the case from § 29.03 (1st-degree) to § 29.02 (2nd-degree).
The elderly-or-disabled-victim aggravator under § 29.03(a)(3) is procedurally distinct from the other two. There is no knowledge requirement — the State need not prove the defendant knew the victim was 65 or older or disabled. The victim's objective age or disabled status, established at the time of the offense, satisfies the aggravator. The "disabled person" definition cross-references § 22.04(c), reaching individuals with substantial physical or mental impairments and certain developmental-disability statuses. Defense work on this aggravator focuses on factual challenges to the victim's age (rare) or, more commonly, to the underlying robbery itself — if the State cannot prove the § 29.02 elements, the aggravator becomes irrelevant.
Robbery vs. aggravated robbery — the charging-decision line
Robbery under § 29.02 is a 2nd-degree felony (2-20 years). Aggravated robbery under § 29.03 is a 1st-degree felony (5-99 years or life). The difference is one of the three § 29.03 aggravators. Negotiation toward a § 29.02 plea is a primary defense lever.
The structural relationship between § 29.02 and § 29.03 produces some of the most consequential charging decisions in Texas criminal practice. Robbery under § 29.02 is a 2nd-degree felony — 2 to 20 years and a fine up to $10,000 under § 12.33, with community supervision and deferred adjudication available subject to standard eligibility criteria. Aggravated robbery under § 29.03 is a 1st-degree felony — 5 to 99 years or life and a fine up to $10,000 under § 12.32, with judge-ordered probation unavailable and parole eligibility running the more restrictive 3g framework. The exposure difference, before any plea negotiation, is 17 to 79 years on the high end and 3 to 5 years on the low end.
Charging discretion sits with the prosecutor at intake. Cases that fall squarely within an aggravator — the defendant displayed a firearm, the victim suffered substantial-risk-of-death injuries, or the victim was 70 years old — are typically indicted as § 29.03. Cases that fall in the gray zone — a victim's injuries are described as bruising and laceration that may or may not satisfy SBI; a weapon may or may not have been displayed; a witness's age is contested — are often charged at the higher offense level and then negotiated downward. The defense's job in those cases is to develop the factual record that undermines the aggravator, producing leverage for a § 29.02 plea negotiation.
Lesser-included instructions on simple robbery under § 29.02 are routinely available in § 29.03 prosecutions. The Hall/Royster framework — Hall v. State, 225 S.W.3d 524 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007), and predecessor decisions — governs entitlement: the lesser must be included within the proof necessary to establish the charged offense (which § 29.02 is, as a matter of law) and some record evidence must permit a rational jury to find the defendant guilty only of the lesser. Where the deadly-weapon element is genuinely contested (the weapon was a replica, the victim never actually saw it, the State cannot prove which co-defendant possessed it), the defense will request and often receive the § 29.02 instruction. A jury that doubts the aggravator can convict on the lesser, moving the case from 5-99 to 2-20.
Theft under § 31.03 is itself a further lesser-included offense in the robbery-and-aggravated-robbery family. Where the State's assaultive-conduct evidence is genuinely weak — no force, no threat, no fear of imminent bodily injury — the defense can argue for a theft instruction. Theft is graded by value of property taken; for property valued under $2,500 it is a Class A or B misdemeanor. The step-down from § 29.03 (1st-degree, 5-99) to theft (misdemeanor or low-level state-jail felony depending on value) is enormous — and is most achievable where the assaultive-conduct element is missing rather than where the aggravator is missing.
Defense strategies — identification, aggravator challenges, and party liability
Aggravated-robbery defense centers on three battlefronts: identification (eyewitness, surveillance, forensic), aggravator challenges (deadly weapon, SBI, victim status), and party liability where the defendant did not personally use the weapon. Each battlefront has its own evidentiary toolkit and its own case-law framework.
Identification work is the foundational defense task in most aggravated-robbery cases. The State's case typically rests on a stranger's identification of the defendant from a brief, stressful encounter — convenience-store robberies last 60 to 90 seconds; carjackings often less than a minute; home invasions vary but the duration of any one witness's observation of any one perpetrator is usually short. Eyewitness identification under stress is among the most well-documented unreliable categories of evidence in the cognitive-science literature. Tillman v. State, 354 S.W.3d 425 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011), opened the door to qualified eyewitness-identification expert testimony in Texas trials. Defense-retained experts address weapon-focus effect, cross-racial-identification accuracy, the suggestiveness of identification procedures, and post-event contamination.
Surveillance-video analysis is the modern second front. Most commercial robberies are captured on store-mounted cameras, parking-lot cameras, vestibule cameras, and adjacent-business cameras. The State will produce a curated subset of the footage at trial; the defense routinely subpoenas the full footage, the metadata, and the original storage media. Video-quality issues — frame rate, resolution, lighting, compression — are exploited by defense-retained video-forensics experts. The State's claim that a particular figure on grainy video is the defendant is frequently contested by demonstrating that the figure's height, build, gait, or clothing differs from the defendant's in identifiable ways. Cell-tower and GPS data either supports or undermines the identification.
Aggravator challenges form the third front. The most-productive aggravator challenge in DFW practice is the deadly-weapon challenge — was the object actually a deadly weapon under § 1.07(a)(17)? Was it actually displayed or used during the offense? Did the victim actually see it? Were two or more co-defendants present and the weapon attributable to only one? A successful deadly-weapon challenge moves the case from § 29.03 to § 29.02 — from 5-99 to 2-20, and from 3g to non-3g. SBI challenges are the next most productive — defense-retained physicians, emergency-room records review, and challenges to the State's severity classification can similarly move § 29.03 to § 29.02.
Party-liability defense work under § 7.02 addresses cases where the defendant is alleged to have aided and abetted but did not personally commit the aggravating act. Maldonado v. State, 998 S.W.2d 239 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999), is the workhorse decision. The State must prove the defendant acted with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense and solicited, encouraged, directed, aided, or attempted to aid the other person. Mere presence at the scene is not enough. The defense develops evidence that the defendant did not know of the other person's intent to use a deadly weapon, did not encourage the use, and did not provide assistance to the aggravating conduct — a particularly important strategy where multiple co-defendants are charged and the State has chosen to push aggravated-robbery liability against all of them.
Penalty + 3g aggravated-offense consequences
Aggravated robbery is a 1st-degree felony (5-99 years or life + $10K fine) and a 3g aggravated offense. Judge-ordered probation is unavailable. Jury-recommended probation requires no prior felony plus sentence of 10 years or less. Parole eligibility runs the lesser of one-half the sentence or 30 calendar years actual time.
The 1st-degree felony range under § 12.32 is 5 to 99 years or life in TDCJ plus an optional fine up to $10,000. The bottom of the range is the meaningful number — 5 years actual minimum exposure on any aggravated-robbery conviction. The defense's job at the punishment phase, assuming conviction, is to position the sentence as close to 5 years as the record will support. Cases that resolve at plea frequently land at 5 to 10 years on a first felony with strong mitigation; cases that go to verdict on contested aggravators sometimes produce sentences well above the floor.
The 3g aggravated-offense designation under Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.054(b)(5) is the single most consequential collateral consequence beyond the prison term itself. Three procedural rules attach to a 3g conviction. First, art. 42A.053(c) forecloses judge-ordered community supervision — the trial judge cannot place an aggravated-robbery defendant on probation, even after a contested trial, even on a low sentence. Second, jury-recommended probation under art. 42A.055 requires both no prior felony conviction and an assessed sentence of 10 years or less. Third, parole eligibility under Gov't Code § 508.145(d) runs the more restrictive calendar — the defendant becomes eligible for parole consideration when actual calendar time served equals the lesser of one-half the sentence or 30 calendar years, with no good-conduct credit applied.
The parole-math difference is enormous. On a 20-year aggravated-robbery sentence, the defendant becomes eligible for parole consideration at 10 calendar years actual time. On a 20-year 2nd-degree felony robbery sentence (non-3g), the defendant becomes eligible at the one-quarter / 15-years calculation under § 508.145(f) — roughly 5 calendar years with good-conduct credit applied. A successful charge-reduction negotiation from § 29.03 to § 29.02 therefore saves not only 20 to 80 years of nominal range exposure but also approximately five years of actual time on any given sentence. Plea-negotiation framing for first-time defendants in DFW practice regularly emphasizes this parole-eligibility math to clients and to prosecutors.
Deadly-weapon findings on the judgment are an independent procedural lever even within § 29.03. The indictment must allege use or exhibition of a deadly weapon, and the jury (or the court on a plea) must affirmatively find that the defendant used or exhibited a deadly weapon. Plummer v. State, 410 S.W.3d 855 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013), governs the sufficiency review for deadly-weapon findings. Where the aggravator charged is the SBI prong under § 29.03(a)(1) or the elderly/disabled prong under § 29.03(a)(3), and no deadly weapon was used, the defense fights to keep a deadly-weapon affirmative finding off the judgment — its absence does not change the offense level but does affect day-to-day prison-classification decisions and the availability of certain post-conviction relief avenues.
Local DFW practice — Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant
Aggravated-robbery prosecutions concentrate in DFW's four major counties. Each county has its own DA office charging philosophy, indictment-grand-jury timeline, plea-negotiation culture, and jury-pool tendency. Local-counsel practice knowledge is consequential — bond posture, court setting culture, and DA-office plea calibration differ across the four counties.
Aggravated-robbery filings in DFW concentrate in Dallas County, where the population density and the urban convenience-store-and-carjacking case mix produce the largest volume. The Dallas County District Attorney's Office operates an organized-violent-crime / robbery division within the DA office that handles the more serious cases vertically. The court culture trends toward firmer plea floors on aggravated-robbery cases with deadly-weapon allegations — a five-year minimum on a first-time defendant is achievable but typically requires substantive challenge to the aggravator. Collin County, encompassing Frisco, Plano, McKinney, and Allen, operates a more compact docket; aggravated-robbery cases are less common per capita and tend to receive more individual prosecutor attention, both at intake and at plea negotiation. The 219th and 380th Judicial District Courts in McKinney handle a substantial share of Collin County felony robbery dockets.
Denton County aggravated-robbery practice runs through the criminal district courts in Denton. The Denton County DA's plea posture is generally similar to Collin's — careful case-by-case assessment, attention to mitigation, and a willingness to consider § 29.02 reductions on properly developed records. Tarrant County in Fort Worth runs the largest violent-crime docket west of Dallas; the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office maintains specialty courts and dedicated violent-crime ADAs handling the most serious cases. Plea negotiation in Tarrant County operates within a frame set by the recent state-level data on aggravated-robbery sentences and the DA office's public-facing statements on violent-crime priorities.
Bond posture for aggravated-robbery in DFW typically ranges from $50,000 to $250,000 on first-time defendants, higher for defendants with priors or for cases involving SBI to victims. Bond reduction motions are routinely filed in the first 30 days. Pretrial supervision, GPS monitoring, and curfew conditions are commonly imposed as conditions of pretrial release. Where the defendant has community ties to one of the four DFW counties, a job, family responsibilities, and a clean record, bond reductions are achievable; where the defendant is a stranger to the community or has prior violent-crime allegations, bonds tend to be set and held at the higher end.
Plea-negotiation culture differs by office. Some Dallas County ADAs will entertain § 29.02 robbery reductions where the aggravator is genuinely contested — particularly the deadly-weapon prong where the weapon was a replica or where party-liability principles attach. Tarrant County's plea floor on § 29.03 with a deadly-weapon allegation runs slightly higher in general; Collin County's tends to track Tarrant on serious violent-crime cases. Across all four counties, the strongest defense leverage is the same: a credible, well-documented challenge to the aggravator, a clean defendant with verifiable community ties and absence of prior violent-crime exposure, and a defense team prepared to try the case rather than settle on the State's opening offer.
When to retain counsel — and what counsel does in the first 90 days
Aggravated-robbery defense work starts before indictment. Retain counsel immediately at arrest, before any custodial interview, before any lineup, and before any consent search. The first 30 days set the trajectory; the first 90 days fix the structural posture of the case.
Retain counsel immediately. Aggravated-robbery investigations frequently include custodial interrogation in the first hours after arrest; identification procedures (lineups, photo arrays, showups) in the first days; and consent-search requests in the first week. Every one of these is more favorable to the State if conducted without defense counsel present. The Fifth Amendment right to silence applies from the moment of arrest; the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at the initial appearance; and the Texas right to counsel under art. I § 10 of the state constitution and Code Crim. Proc. art. 1.051 attaches earlier. A defendant who has retained counsel before the first custodial interview almost always emerges from that initial period in a significantly better evidentiary position than one who has not.
In the first 30 days, defense counsel handles magistrate-hearing posture and bond reduction, preserves scene and digital evidence via written demands, identifies and locks in alibi and corroborating witnesses, obtains and analyzes all surveillance footage and metadata, secures cell-tower and GPS data via subpoena where applicable, identifies and interviews co-defendants (or arranges for separate counsel), and conducts a preliminary identification-and-aggravator assessment. This window is short — surveillance recordings auto-overwrite on 7-to-30-day cycles in many commercial systems, witness memories degrade, and physical evidence at the scene is cleared.
In the next 60 days, defense counsel moves to grand-jury posture (where applicable; Texas grand juries indict the great majority of presented aggravated-robbery cases), submits Article 39.14 discovery demands, retains identification and forensic experts (eyewitness-identification psychologist, video-forensics analyst, defense-retained physician for any SBI claim), develops the aggravator-challenge theory and the underlying-robbery theory in parallel, and begins plea-negotiation framing. The choice of whether to push for a pre-indictment resolution, a post-indictment plea negotiation, or a trial-readiness posture is generally fixed by the end of the 90-day window.
After 90 days, the case enters its longer-term motion-practice and trial-preparation phase. Motions to suppress (identification procedures, statements, search results) are filed; Rule 404(b) admissibility battles over prior similar conduct are joined; Brady/Giglio demands continue; expert reports are exchanged; trial settings are negotiated. The DFW trial calendar for contested aggravated-robbery cases typically produces a trial setting 12 to 24 months after arrest. During that period, plea-negotiation posture and trial-readiness posture co-exist — the defense prepares to try the case and simultaneously negotiates a plea offer that reflects the litigation risk the State perceives.
