Tarrant County Criminal Defense Services

Tarrant County criminal-justice infrastructure

Tarrant County spans roughly 864 square miles of North Texas and counted 2,110,640 residents at the 2020 Census, ranking it among the state’s most populous counties. Its seat and largest city is Fort Worth — one of the largest cities in the United States — and its other principal municipalities include Arlington, Grand Prairie, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Euless, Grapevine, Bedford, Keller, and Hurst. The criminal courts, the Criminal District Attorney, and the main county jail all cluster within a compact downtown-Fort Worth government complex along Belknap, Weatherford, and Lamar streets.

Every criminal prosecution in the county is carried by the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. Unlike many Texas counties, Tarrant keeps no separate county attorney to split off the misdemeanor docket — the Criminal District Attorney charges both felonies and misdemeanors. Felony matters (state-jail through capital) are tried before the county’s eleven felony district courts: four dedicated Criminal District Courts (Nos. 1–4) and seven numbered district courts — the 213th, 297th, 371st, 372nd, 396th, 432nd, and 485th — that also hear felonies. Class A and B misdemeanors, including misdemeanor DWI, are filed in the ten County Criminal Courts (Nos. 1–10), Tarrant’s designation for its criminal misdemeanor courts, which are distinct from the civil county courts at law. Class C fine-only offenses are handled by the justice-of-the-peace and municipal courts. Federal cases arising from county activity proceed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (TXND).

Services for Tarrant County clients

L and L Law Group provides four primary service categories for Tarrant County criminal matters. Each has a dedicated information page with the full defense workflow:

Practice areas covered in Tarrant County

The firm handles the full charge spectrum in Tarrant County. The most common case categories filed in the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, 401 W. Belknap Street, Fort Worth:

• DWI and intoxication offenses — Tex. Penal Code Ch. 49. First offense Class B (BAC under 0.15), Class A (BAC 0.15+), felony DWI (third offense or with child passenger), intoxication assault, intoxication manslaughter. See our DWI defense page.
• Drug crimes — Tex. Health & Safety Code Ch. 481. Penalty Group 1, 1-A, 1-B, 2, 2-A, 3, 4 across possession, possession with intent, manufacture, and delivery. See our drug defense page.
• Family violence and protective orders — Tex. Penal Code §§ 22.01, 25.07, 25.11. Class A family-violence assault, continuous family violence felony, violations of protective orders. Federal Lautenberg firearm-ban consequences under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). See our family-violence page.
• Sex crimes — Tex. Penal Code Ch. 21-22 plus § 33.021. Sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, indecency, child-pornography, online solicitation. Federal Adam Walsh SORNA registration cross-reference. See our sex-crimes page.
• Weapons charges — Tex. Penal Code Ch. 46 + federal 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). UCW, felon-in-possession, prohibited weapons, weapon transfer. See our weapons page.
• White collar and fraud — Tex. Penal Code Ch. 31-34. Theft, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering. See our white-collar page.
• Federal charges — TXND and TXED indictments. Pre-indictment negotiation, Guidelines sentencing, safety-valve and 5K1.1 departures. See our federal defense page.
• Juvenile cases — Tex. Family Code Title 3. § 54.02 transfer-to-adult-court opposition, juvenile-record sealing, juvenile sex-offense conditional registration. See our juvenile defense page.
• Expunction and non-disclosure — Tex. Code Crim. Proc. ch. 55 + Tex. Gov’t Code ch. 411. Eligibility analysis, petition drafting, agency-service distribution, post-order compliance. See our expunction page.

Why retain L and L Law Group for a Tarrant County matter

Three operational reasons. First, direct attorney access: every retained matter is handled by Reggie or Njeri London personally — no intake clerk, no junior associate handoff. The partner who takes the consultation is the partner who appears at every hearing. Second, flat-fee structure: engagement fees are quoted in writing at the free initial consult and cover the entire defense through final disposition or trial in chief. Hourly billing in criminal defense creates the wrong incentives because the State controls the case pace. Third, dual prosecutor-and-defense perspective: Reggie’s prior service as a Dallas County Assistant District Attorney informs the firm’s reading of probable-cause affidavits, plea-evaluation thresholds, and trial-preparation escalation. Njeri’s federal admissions (TXND, TXED, 5th Circuit) and motion-practice depth complete the framework.

The firm is in Frisco; Tarrant County is in our default coverage area. Office at 5899 Preston Rd, Suite 101, Frisco, TX 75034. Phone (972) 370-5060 24/7. Email info@landllawgroup.com.

Tarrant County criminal-defense help, 24/7

Free, confidential consultation — direct to attorney. Flat-fee representation.

Inside the Tarrant County criminal-justice system

Tarrant County's criminal-court operations are concentrated at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, 401 W. Belknap Street, Fort Worth, TX 76196. The district clerk, the Criminal District Attorney's Office, and the felony and misdemeanor courtrooms share the downtown complex, with the Sheriff's detention facilities a short walk away. All contested matters — felony and misdemeanor alike — are prosecuted by the Criminal District Attorney, whose office runs specialized divisions for offense types such as intoxication, narcotics, family violence, and crimes against children. A defendant who lives outside the county still answers the charge at the Fort Worth complex unless venue is transferred under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 31.

After an arrest anywhere in the county, the accused is booked and brought before a magistrate at Central Magistration without unnecessary delay and no later than 48 hours from arrest, as Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 15.17 requires. The magistrate reads the statutory warnings, sets bond through an individualized assessment of the alleged facts, flight and re-offense risk, ability to pay, and community safety, and screens the arrestee for court-appointed counsel. If no probable-cause determination is made within 24 hours for a misdemeanor or 48 hours for a felony, the accused becomes entitled to release on a bond capped at $5,000 or $10,000 respectively — one of several early pressure points where prompt defense involvement can matter.

Geography, transportation, and policing

Tarrant County blends dense urban cores with sprawling suburbs and unincorporated land patrolled by the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office. Its road network is dominated by four freeways — I-30 running east–west through downtown Fort Worth toward Arlington and Dallas, I-35W carrying north–south traffic through the center of the county, I-20 across the southern tier, and I-820 (Loop 820) encircling Fort Worth — supplemented by SH 121, SH 183 (Airport Freeway), SH 114, SH 360, US 287, US 377, and the Chisholm Trail Parkway toll road. Those corridors generate a heavy volume of DWI, drug, and traffic-stop cases for the Sheriff's Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Inside their own city limits, the county's municipal police departments — the Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, and Euless Police Departments, among others in Grapevine, Bedford, Hurst, and Keller — make most arrests, while the Sheriff handles unincorporated areas, county-wide warrants, and jail operations.

An arrestee is booked into the county jail system run by the Sheriff's Detention Bureau. Intake is centralized at the Tarrant County Corrections Center, 100 N. Lamar Street, and the main downtown lockup is the Lon Evans Corrections Center, 600 W. Weatherford Street — both in Fort Worth, 76196. Bonds are posted from the jail or arranged through a licensed bonding company near the courthouse.

Why local defense practice matters in Tarrant County

Tarrant County's criminal courts each have distinct case-management practices, plea-and-trial calendars, and prosecutorial dispositions. The DA's office staffs prosecutors who specialize in DWI, narcotics, sex offenses, family violence, and white-collar prosecutions — each unit operates with its own internal policies on plea offers, diversion eligibility, and trial readiness. Defense attorneys who appear regularly in the Fort Worth courts develop case-specific intelligence: which judges grant motions to suppress, which prosecutors will offer pretrial diversion in first-offense possession cases, which probation officers respond to early-termination motions favorably. That granular practice knowledge is the practical difference between an effective local defense and a generic representation that misses opportunities available only through local relationships.

L and L Law Group practices regularly in Tarrant County's criminal courts, where co-founding partners Reggie London (Texas Bar No. 24043514) and Njeri London (Texas Bar No. 24043266) handle felony and misdemeanor matters in DWI, drug-possession, theft, assault, sex-offense, weapons, and family-violence cases. Part of that local knowledge is Tarrant County's unusually deep slate of specialty and diversion courts, several of which can reshape an outcome for an eligible client: the Felony Alcohol Intervention Program (FAIP) for repeat-DWI defendants, a Veterans Treatment Court, a Mental Health Diversion Court, the RISE reentry program, a First Offender Drug Program, the CSCD-supervised DIRECT drug court, a Domestic Violence Diversion Program, the Youthful Offender Diversion Alternative (YODA), and a Public Safety Employee Treatment Court. Screening a case against these programs early — before a plea is entered — is often where local practice makes the practical difference in a Tarrant County matter.