If you were arrested for assault family violence in Collin County, expect a bond between $1,500 and $10,000 on a Class A misdemeanor, a no-contact condition that follows you until the case ends, and a District Attorney’s office that files the vast majority of these cases and almost never dismisses one without conditions completed up front. There is no pretrial diversion for family violence here, and the office does not currently allow Class C reductions. The realistic paths to a clean record are a conditional dismissal, a grand jury no-bill on felonies, or a dismissal earned through genuine trial readiness. All three are built in the first weeks, not the last ones.
I’m Justin Wilson. I spent three years prosecuting cases for the Collin County District Attorney’s Office before I started defending them, and my firm handles family violence cases in Collin County’s courts every week. This page covers how these cases actually move here: what the magistrates do, how the DA’s Domestic Violence Unit thinks, and where the outcomes that protect your record really come from. If your case is across the county line, or you want the two systems side by side, I’ve written a separate comparison of how Collin and Denton County handle the same arrest differently, and a broader guide to defending a criminal case in Collin County.
If you are looking for representation rather than background, start with our Collin County assault family violence lawyer page, where we explain how we defend these cases from the warrant stage through the grand jury and trial.
The first 72 hours: bond, and the orders that control your life
Every person arrested for family violence in Collin County goes in front of a magistrate, and the magistrate must review two things before setting bond: the officer’s probable cause affidavit and a public safety report (PSR) generated for that specific defendant. What comes out the other side is less predictable than people expect.
On a Class A assault family violence charge, bonds typically run from $1,500 to $10,000. On the third-degree felonies (impeding breath, assault of a pregnant person, continuous violence against the family), we usually see $7,500 up to $30,000. Judges have broad discretion here, and the results are not consistent. We have represented two clients at the same time, both charged with Class A family violence, both with no criminal history, where one bond was set at $1,500 and the other at $10,000. If anything, the injuries alleged in the $1,500 case were more visible. The $10,000 case went on to resolve with a dismissal. In my experience there is little correlation between the bond amount and the strength of the case, so do not read your bond as a verdict on your future.
Part of the reason is volume. The jails that magistrate most Collin County family violence arrests (the Collin County jail, Frisco, and Wylie) run magistrations essentially every day, and the county jail runs them roughly twice a day, every day of the year. That work is spread across a rotation of judges, and each magistrate brings their own experience and preferences to bond and bond conditions.
The bigger practical question is not the dollar amount. It is which orders come with it. A magistrate can issue an emergency protective order (EPO), bond conditions, or both, and what you get varies with where you were magistrated. For years, Collin County magistrates routinely issued contradictory paperwork: an EPO that ordered the defendant to stay 500 feet from the home but allowed non-threatening contact with the complainant elsewhere, alongside bond conditions that prohibited all contact of any kind. That meant filing motions to modify both documents just to make the rules coherent. These days the patterns have shifted. At the county jail we see fewer EPOs and, instead, consistent no-contact and stay-away bond conditions, which at least gives us a single document to modify. Wylie tends to issue an EPO with stay-away and no-contact provisions but only general bond conditions, so the fight there is over the EPO, heard by the Wylie municipal court, usually by Zoom and usually faster than the county’s crowded hearing docket. Frisco is a mix, and in my experience Frisco magistrates are more reasonable about letting a defendant return home, usually prohibiting threatening or harassing contact rather than banning all communication, except in the more serious cases.
Whatever you were given, understand two things. First, these orders go into the TCIC and NCIC databases, so an officer in any jurisdiction who encounters you and the complainant together can pull them up on the spot. Violating a no-contact condition is a new arrest and a much harder case. Second, release itself works differently in family violence cases. Texas law generally requires the jail to release a defendant once bond is posted, but family violence arrests are the exception: the jail must make reasonable efforts to notify the complainant before release, and if the magistrate finds probable cause that further violence could occur, the jail can hold the defendant up to four more hours after bond is posted, extendable up to 48 hours with additional findings about prior family violence arrests or prior deadly weapon offenses. At the Collin County jail this rarely matters, because release takes eight to twelve hours anyway. In Frisco, we frequently see the four-hour hold actually used. Wylie tends to release without it.
Because the criminal case will run a year or more and these conditions apply the entire time, the first thing we do when a client hires us is file the motion to modify the EPO, the bond conditions, or both. Every day of delay is another day out of your own home. I’ve written separately about modifying an emergency protective order and what to do when an EPO has you locked out of your house.
If a child was present: the CPS case inside your case
When officers believe a child may have been present during the alleged assault, they are required to report the incident to CPS, and CPS then has 72 hours to make contact with the children and assess their wellbeing. During that initial assessment, caseworkers will usually interview the complainant. The harder question is the defendant, because CPS will want that interview too, and statements made to CPS are not protected from the criminal case.
Our approach is cooperation without exposure. CPS caseworkers are generally trying to close their file within about 30 days of the report, and the fastest way to get CPS out of a family’s life is to make it easy for them to verify the children are safe: give them access to the home and the children, and sit for the interview with counsel present. Those interviews happen at the Collin County Children’s Advocacy Center in Plano or McKinney. We accompany our clients, we do not permit questions about the underlying facts of the criminal case, and we let our clients answer everything that helps the caseworker document that no abuse or neglectful supervision occurred. Handled that way, the CPS case usually closes quickly. Handled casually, it can generate the most damaging statements in the entire prosecution.
How the DA’s Domestic Violence Unit actually works these cases
Collin County’s DV Unit files the vast majority of the Class A family violence cases that come through the door. With the volume the unit handles, the main intake question is simply whether the assault occurred between intimate partners. The office recently widened the unit’s lane: DV prosecutors now handle every charge arising between intimate partners, not just assault, which sweeps in interference with an emergency call, harassment, stalking, unlawful restraint, and sexual assault.
Two consequences of that intake structure are worth knowing. First, when local agencies (especially the smaller ones) arrest for family violence between roommates, siblings, or a parent and adult child, Collin County will typically file those as ordinary Class A assault rather than family violence. Do not be fooled by the label. Because the case arose from a family violence accusation, Texas law still bars an order of nondisclosure, even after a successful deferred adjudication. So even on a case filed as plain assault, we have to aim at outcomes that preserve expunction eligibility. Banking on a nondisclosure later is a mistake I see other lawyers make, and it is not fixable after the plea.
Second, policy inside the unit moves, and right now it has moved against defendants in one specific way: misdemeanor DV prosecutors are currently not authorized to offer reductions to Class C assault with deferred adjudication. The Class C deferred was a valuable outcome, because it let the State tell the complainant the case was not dismissed while leaving the defendant expunction-eligible. I have watched the office ban this resolution, bring it back, and now ban it again, so it may return. But as of today, the realistic menu in Collin County is narrower: conditional dismissal, outright dismissal, deferred adjudication or conviction (both of which leave a permanent record here), or trial.
One constant across every policy change: prosecutors must contact the complainant before offering any reduction or dismissal. When the complainant wants the case dismissed and the State cannot prove it without her testimony, that is the most direct path to a dismissal. But the State is under no obligation to tell us what the complainant has said, and often it doesn’t. Sometimes we know the complainant’s position directly. When we don’t, we build the case the other way: line up what the State can and cannot prove at trial without the complainant, and press the sufficiency problem. Dismissal decisions in the unit are typically worked out between the assigned prosecutor and a chief, so my job is to put enough proof problems in that file that dismissing our case is the defensible recommendation, not the risky one.
The strangulation felony: all or nothing
Impeding breath cases (what most people call strangulation charges) are their own animal in Collin County, and the single most important thing I can tell you about them is this: the time to hire a lawyer is before the grand jury, not after. Too many people wait until they are indicted and get a court date, hoping the case will simply go away. By then, the cheapest opportunity in the whole case has already been spent.
Here is the math. A Texas grand jury has twelve members, and nine must agree there is probable cause to indict. That means I do not need to convince twelve people of anything; I need to give four of them a reason to doubt. A well-built grand jury packet can do that. And even when a no-bill on the felony isn’t in the cards, grand jurors who doubt the strangulation but believe an assault occurred can indict the case as a Class A misdemeanor instead, which changes everything about the defendant’s exposure.
The evidence in these cases is usually thinner than the charge suggests. The best physical evidence of impeded breathing is petechiae, the tiny red dots around the eyes and lips left by burst capillaries when oxygen is cut off. We rarely see it. What we usually see is a scratch somewhere near the neck, or nothing but the complainant’s statement. What we usually do not see: a raspy voice, a hospital visit for throat pain, swelling in the larynx, or bruising in the shape of fingers. And in a striking number of these cases, the recordings capture the complainant yelling throughout the alleged strangulation, which is not something a person being choked can do.
There is also a legal wrinkle that changed how these cases get tried. Texas appellate case law now holds that Class A assault is not a lesser included offense of assault impeding breath, so a jury trying the felony cannot compromise down to the misdemeanor. Either the jury believes beyond a reasonable doubt that strangulation occurred, or it acquits. Nothing in between. In practice, that all-or-nothing posture makes prosecutors relatively willing to reduce impeding breath cases to Class A misdemeanors by agreement. The real work is the dismissal, and that takes a detailed attack on the deficiencies in the evidence plus a defense that is credibly prepared to try the case, with eyes open about what a felony trial risks.
The conditional dismissal: how dismissals actually happen here
Collin County does not offer pretrial diversion for family violence cases. What it offers instead, case by case, is the conditional dismissal, and after handling these from both sides of the aisle I can tell you why it works the way it does: prosecutors almost never dismiss a family violence case with nothing completed up front, because a dismissal gets second-guessed inside the office, and the prosecutor wants something in the file that justifies the decision if a supervisor ever asks.
So we build toward that file. After we have reviewed the discovery, we give the prosecutor a detailed breakdown of the weaknesses in the case. If the complainant has provided a properly prepared affidavit of non-prosecution, we provide that too. Then we propose the dismissal and negotiate the conditions. A typical package starts small: a four-hour anger management class and sometimes a donation of around $100 to Hope’s Door, the primary domestic violence shelter serving Collin County. Sometimes the State asks for more, up to the full Batterers Intervention and Prevention Program (BIPP), which is 24 hours of class time, typically one hour a week for 24 weeks (some providers run 25 or 26 weeks with an introductory session or holiday breaks). Where the conditions land depends on the strength of the evidence, what statements the defendant made, the quality of the affidavit of non-prosecution, and whether the State could realistically prove the case even without the complainant. When the terms are met, we deliver the certificate and receipt, the prosecutor files the motion to dismiss, and the judge typically signs the order within a day or two.
Two practical notes. The courts want these cases resolved, so when a dismissal is conditioned on BIPP, judges will give a defendant the months it takes to finish, usually with status settings along the way to confirm progress. And a client who starts counseling or an anger management course on his own, early, before anyone asks, makes every one of these conversations easier.
Getting the no-contact conditions changed
Modification practice in Collin County depends on timing and venue. Before the case is filed or indicted, modification hearings happen in front of the magistrate, and I will be direct about what those hearings require: the court will want to hear from the complainant that she feels safe and wants the defendant home. Without the complainant’s support, a pre-filing modification is close to a nonstarter.
After filing, the hearing is in the assigned court, and some judges will question the complainant directly from the bench. We recently won a modification hearing where the complainant, answering the court’s own questions, explained that the allegations came after pressure from her family to seek a divorce. That testimony made the difference. Expect the felony courts to probe hardest: the allegations there are more serious, and in my experience felony judges want considerably more convincing before they modify conditions and allow a defendant to return home than the misdemeanor courts do.
Where the hearing happens matters too, as covered above: Wylie EPO modifications are heard by Zoom in the Wylie municipal court and often get scheduled quickly, sometimes without a prosecutor appearing; Frisco hearings are in person at the Frisco municipal courthouse but are rarely needed given how Frisco writes its conditions; and contested hearings at the county level compete for space on a crowded docket, which is why filing the motion the week we are hired matters so much.
There is one more path to a modification that matters in cases where children were present. When police report an incident to CPS, the Domestic Violence Unit generally will not discuss softening no-contact or stay-away conditions while that investigation is open. But once CPS closes its investigation, the Unit will consider agreeing to a modification: replacing a full no-contact bond condition with a condition that allows contact so long as it is not threatening or harassing in nature, and removing a residential stay-away order so a parent can return home and be with their children. An agreed modification changes the entire posture of the hearing, because you are no longer asking a judge to override the State’s objection.
None of this happens automatically. The Unit’s willingness depends on the adult complainant wanting the modification and being willing to testify to that at the bond or protective order modification hearing. It is also one more reason the CPS approach described earlier on this page matters so much: cooperating early and making it easy for CPS to verify the children are safe and close its file is often the fastest route to getting a parent back home.
Trial leverage in Collin County: ready beats set
On this point, family violence cases in Collin County work differently than DWIs. Setting the case for trial is not, by itself, the move that changes the offer. The leverage arrives when you can truthfully announce ready.
Here is the dynamic. Every court in the county feels the weight of the DV Unit’s trial docket, and docket pressure is what the courts manage. The misdemeanor courts will essentially always grant one continuance, and will rarely grant two. Some felony courts will grant one; a few grant none at all absent an extraordinary reason. So when the defense announces ready at the pretrial hearing, the State has to burn what is likely its only continuance at the first trial setting. In a felony court that does not grant continuances, an announcement of ready puts the State in a genuine bind: ordered to trial on a case it may not be able to prove, or holding a different case it needs to try that week. We have seen that pressure produce dismissals, sometimes with no conditions at all.
Which is why we structure fees the way we do. We charge flat fees divided into a pretrial fee and an optional trial fee, and we work with clients on installment plans. Once the trial fee is paid, we prepare the case to be tried, fully, and we announce ready and mean it. Courts and prosecutors learn quickly which lawyers announce ready and mean it, and that reputation, case after case, is a large part of what our clients are actually buying.
The mistakes that make these cases harder
After years of these cases, the same few mistakes keep appearing, and most of them happen before we are hired.
Contacting the complainant in writing. If there is a no-contact condition and the complainant texts first, the condition still applies to you, and a screenshot of your reply is the easiest bond violation a prosecutor will ever prove. Follow the conditions to the letter until we get them modified, and whatever you do, do not put contact in writing.
Letting anyone talk to the detective loosely. We have cleaned up cases where a previous lawyer, talking to a detective before charges were filed, said something that implied his own client committed the assault. Statements like that follow the file forever. Nobody, including counsel, should be discussing the facts with law enforcement without a plan.
Waiting until indictment on a felony. As covered above, the grand jury is the cheapest exit a strangulation case will ever have, and it closes early.
Rushing the affidavit of non-prosecution. A complainant effectively gets one sworn statement. Done early and carelessly, it locks in an admission that an assault occurred and helps no one. I’ve covered how to handle the affidavit correctly separately, and it is worth reading before anyone goes near a notary.
Across the county line
Frisco sits on the Collin and Denton county line, and the two systems treat this same arrest very differently: Denton offers pretrial diversion for family violence where Collin does not, concentrates every case in two courts where Collin spreads them across all of its courts, and moves on a completely different clock. If your case is in Denton, or you are not sure which county has it, start with my side-by-side comparison: Assault Family Violence: Collin County vs. Denton County.
Assault Family Violence and Domestic Violence: Same Charge, Different Names
If you have been searching for information about a domestic violence charge, or looking for a domestic violence lawyer in Frisco or anywhere in Collin County, you are in the right place. Texas does not have a criminal offense called domestic violence. What everyone outside the courthouse calls domestic violence, Texas files as assault family violence under Penal Code Section 22.01, using the definitions of family, household member, and dating relationship from Chapter 71 of the Family Code.
The county’s own prosecutors reflect this split in vocabulary. The unit that will handle your case is called the Domestic Violence Unit, but every charging instrument it files says assault family violence. Police reports, bond paperwork, and the judgment itself will all use the statutory name, even though nearly every client who calls us starts the conversation with the words domestic violence.
So if you were looking for a domestic violence attorney in Collin County, understand that you are looking for an assault family violence attorney. It is the same charge, the same courts, and the same defense work, and it is what our domestic violence defense practice in Frisco handles every week.
Before you choose a lawyer for a family violence case, read my guide to how to choose a defense attorney, including why hiring early matters so much when a no-contact order is keeping you from your home.
Frequently asked questions
How much is bond for assault family violence in Collin County?
Class A misdemeanor family violence bonds typically run $1,500 to $10,000. Third-degree felony cases such as impeding breath, assault of a pregnant person, or continuous violence against the family usually run $7,500 to $30,000. Magistrates have broad discretion, and in my experience the amount correlates poorly with the strength of the case.
How long after posting bond will I be released in a Collin County family violence case?
Family violence cases are an exception to the usual rule of immediate release once bond is posted. The jail must attempt to notify the complainant first, and the magistrate can order a hold of up to four hours after bond is posted, extendable to 48 hours with additional findings about prior family violence or deadly weapon arrests. At the Collin County jail, release typically takes eight to twelve hours regardless. Frisco frequently applies the four-hour hold; Wylie usually releases without it.
Will I get an emergency protective order, bond conditions, or both?
It depends largely on where you were magistrated. The Collin County jail currently tends to issue no-contact and stay-away bond conditions rather than EPOs. Wylie tends to issue an EPO with stay-away and no-contact terms alongside only general bond conditions. Frisco is a mix and often stops short of a complete contact ban. Each combination is modified through a different court and process.
Can I go back home while my Collin County family violence case is pending?
Often yes, but usually only after a contested modification hearing, because the State rarely agrees to modify. Before the case is filed, the magistrate will effectively require the complainant to say she feels safe and wants the defendant home. After filing, the assigned court decides, and felony courts take the most convincing.
Does Collin County offer pretrial diversion for assault family violence?
No. Collin County instead resolves appropriate cases through conditional dismissals: the defendant completes agreed conditions up front, such as an anger management class, a donation to a local domestic violence shelter, or in some cases the BIPP program, and the State then moves to dismiss.
Does Collin County still reduce family violence cases to Class C deferred adjudication?
Not currently. Misdemeanor domestic violence prosecutors are not presently authorized to offer Class C reductions with deferred adjudication. The policy has changed back and forth over the years and may change again, but no defense strategy should depend on it today.
What if the assault charge involves a roommate or sibling instead of a partner?
Collin County typically files non-intimate-partner cases as ordinary Class A assault rather than family violence. Because the case still arose from a family violence accusation, it remains ineligible for an order of nondisclosure, so the defense strategy still has to aim at dismissal and expunction eligibility.
Can a strangulation charge be reduced or dismissed in Collin County?
Yes, and the grand jury is the first and best opportunity. Nine of twelve grand jurors must agree to indict, so persuading four produces a no-bill, and doubt about the strangulation element can result in indictment as a Class A misdemeanor instead. Prosecutors also reduce these cases by agreement with some regularity. Dismissals take a documented attack on the evidence and genuine trial readiness.
Will CPS get involved in my Collin County family violence case?
If officers believed a child may have been present, they were required to report to CPS, which then has 72 hours to check on the children. Expect the caseworker to interview the complainant and to request an interview with the defendant. Handled with counsel, cooperating on the wellbeing of the children while declining questions about the facts of the case, the CPS file usually closes within about 30 days.
Does setting a family violence case for trial get a better offer in Collin County?
Setting the case for trial is not enough by itself. The leverage comes from being genuinely ready for trial: Collin County courts grant the State very few continuances, so a defense that announces ready at pretrial forces real decisions, and that pressure has produced dismissals, sometimes without conditions.
Is assault family violence the same as domestic violence in Texas?
Yes. Domestic violence is the everyday term; assault family violence is the charge Texas actually files. There is no offense called domestic violence in the Texas Penal Code. When the alleged victim is a family member, a household member, or someone the accused is or was dating, an assault under Penal Code Section 22.01 is charged as assault family violence, and that is what your court paperwork will say. If you were searching for a domestic violence attorney, this is the charge that attorney defends.
Will Collin County prosecutors agree to modify a no-contact order after CPS closes its investigation?
In my experience, yes, that is when it becomes possible. When children were present and the case was reported to CPS, the Domestic Violence Unit will consider agreeing to replace a full no-contact bond condition with one allowing non-threatening, non-harassing contact, and to remove a residential stay-away order so a parent can return home. That agreement depends on the adult complainant wanting the modification and being willing to testify to that at the modification hearing. Nothing about a modification is automatic, and every case is different.
Arrested for family violence in Frisco, Plano, McKinney, or anywhere in Collin County?
The decisions that shape these cases happen in the first days: the bond conditions, the CPS interview, the grand jury on a felony. Talk to a domestic violence defense lawyer who prosecuted these cases in this county and defends them in these courts every week. Free consultation: 214-764-5535. My Dallas Criminal Lawyer, 5 Cowboys Way STE 300, Frisco, TX 75034, serving all of Collin County.
This article describes general patterns from my experience in Collin County. It is not legal advice or a guarantee of any result. Every case turns on its own facts, the evidence, and the court involved.
