How Long Does a Criminal Case Take in Bexar County? A San Antonio Criminal Defense Attorney Explains
Updated: 4 days ago
The question almost every new client asks in the first ten minutes is some version of "how long is this going to take?" It is a fair question. A pending criminal case sits over your job, your housing, your immigration status, and your ability to sleep. Here is an honest answer from a San Antonio criminal defense attorney: it depends on the charge, the court, and the evidence. However, the stages are predictable, and knowing them makes the wait easier to plan around.
Texas has no hard deadline that forces a criminal case to trial. Nothing dismisses your case automatically just because time has passed.
Misdemeanors in Bexar County generally move faster than felonies.
Discovery is usually the single biggest driver of delay, especially when a lab report or hours of body camera video are involved.
Resets are normal. A case reset three or four times is not a case that has been forgotten.
A case that moves faster is not always a case that ends better. Speed and outcome are different goals, and sometimes they pull against each other.
What the law actually says about how long a Texas criminal case takes
You have a constitutional right to a speedy trial. Texas once had a statutory speedy-trial deadline. It was struck down decades ago. What remains is a constitutional right that courts weigh case by case, looking at how long the delay was, who caused it, whether the defense actually asked for a trial, and whether the delay hurt the defense. Delay caused by the defense — including resets your own lawyer requested — counts against you in that analysis. This is why "it has been a year" is not, by itself, an argument.
There is a separate clock that does matter: the statute of limitations. That clock runs on the State's ability to file charges, not on how long a filed case can sit. In Texas, misdemeanors generally carry a two-year limitations period and many felonies carry three years, with significant exceptions — some offenses carry much longer periods, and a few carry none at all. Once the State files, the limitations clock has done its job and stops helping you.
One more rule shapes the calendar more than any other: Article 39.14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Michael Morton Act. It requires the State to turn over the evidence in its file when the defense requests it. It does not put a hard deadline on when every last item has to arrive, and evidence the State does not have yet — a pending lab result, for instance — cannot be produced until it exists. But it must be produced as soon as practicable.
What this means for you in a Bexar County criminal court
Every case moves through the same skeleton:
Arrest and magistration. Within roughly 48 hours of arrest, you see a magistrate, get your warnings, and get a bond set.
Charging. For a misdemeanor, the Bexar County District Attorney files an information and the case goes to one of the county courts at law. For a felony, the case will likely be in pre-indictment court because it has to go to a grand jury first. If the grand jury returns an indictment, the case is assigned to a district court. If it no-bills, the case is typically over (but the state can take the case to another grand jury). Grand jury scheduling alone routinely accounts for months of the timeline on a felony.
First setting and discovery. Your lawyer files the discovery request, the State produces its file, and the two sides start working through it. Reports come first. Video, lab reports, and phone extractions come later — sometimes much later.
Pretrial settings. Cases are typically reset every several weeks. Each setting exists so the court can check whether the case is ready to be resolved, tried, or set for a hearing.
Resolution. Dismissal, plea, or trial.
Misdemeanors commonly resolve inside a year. Felonies commonly take longer, and a felony that goes to trial can run well past two years. These are ranges, not schedules — a Bexar County criminal lawyer cannot tell you a date at the first meeting.
What actually makes a case take longer
Lab work. Blood tests, controlled-substance analysis, and DNA all sit in a queue. A blood-draw DWI case often waits months on a single report.
Digital evidence. Body camera footage from six officers, jail calls, and a phone download take real time to produce and real time to review.
The grand jury. Felony cases wait their turn.
Co-defendants. Two or three defendants means two or three schedules, and cases often move at the pace of the slowest one.
Deliberate patience. Sometimes waiting is the strategy. A complainant's cooperation, a lab result, a pending case in another court, or a change in who is handling the file can all change what the State is willing to do.
What to do while your case is pending
Show up to every setting. Missing one turns a wait into a warrant, and a warrant restarts everything on worse terms.
Follow every bond condition exactly. An ankle monitor violation or a failed test creates a second problem for you.
Stop discussing the case. Not in texts, not on social media, and not on a recorded jail call. The State can get its hands on those.
Keep your phone number and address current with your lawyer and with bond supervision.
Ask what the case is waiting on. "Waiting on discovery" and "waiting on the lab" are different answers with different timelines.
Use the time. Counseling, treatment, classes, and a steady work history look very different at month twelve than at month one. Time is one of the few things in a pending case you actually control.
When to call a San Antonio criminal defense attorney
Call early. The stretch that damages cases the most is often the first few weeks — before charges are filed, before the grand jury meets, and before anyone has told you to stop answering questions. That window closes quietly, and it does not reopen.
Call again the moment something changes: a new charge, a missed setting, a protective order, contact from an investigator, or a bond condition you cannot realistically meet.
If you have been arrested, charged, or contacted about an investigation in Bexar County, call our office at (210) 201-3096. We answer the phone. If you would rather start in writing, our contact form is at https://www.reasonabledoubtsa.com/contact and we respond within a business day.