Texas False Imprisonment: Restraint, Penalties, and Defenses

In Texas, false imprisonment is prosecuted under the unlawful restraint statute, Penal Code Section 20.02, and the offense runs from a Class A misdemeanor up to a second-degree felony depending on who was restrained and how.¹ The same conduct also opens the person who did the restraining to a civil lawsuit for damages, on a separate track from the criminal case.

What Counts as Restraint

A person commits the offense by intentionally or knowingly restricting another person’s movements without consent so as to substantially interfere with their liberty, either by moving them or by confining them.²¹ Walls and locked doors are not required. Grabbing someone’s arm, blocking an exit, or threatening harm if they try to leave can all satisfy the conduct element.

Restraint is “without consent” when it is accomplished through force, intimidation, or deception.² That means verbal threats and lies can meet the element as readily as physical force. Consent given under threat, or given because the person was tricked, is not real consent.

The rule works differently for children under 14 and for people who are legally incompetent. Restraint of those individuals is treated as “without consent” by default unless a parent, guardian, or person acting in a parental role agreed to it.² The prosecution does not have to prove the child understood they were being confined. This distinction shows up often in custody disputes and cases involving caregivers.

Criminal Penalties by Tier

Unlawful restraint starts at the misdemeanor level and climbs based on the victim and the surrounding facts.

Class A misdemeanor is the baseline. Punishment goes up to one year in county jail, a fine up to $4,000, or both.³¹
State jail felony applies if the person restrained was under 17. Punishment runs from 180 days to two years in a state jail facility, with a possible fine up to $10,000.⁴¹
Third-degree felony applies where the accused recklessly exposed the victim to a substantial risk of serious bodily injury, restrained someone they knew to be a public servant performing official duties, or committed the offense while in custody or at a civil commitment facility. Punishment is two to ten years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.⁵¹
Second-degree felony applies where the victim is a peace officer or judge acting in an official capacity. Punishment is two to twenty years in prison.¹

Unlawful restraint can also stack on top of other charges. If prosecutors believe the restraint was part of an assault, sexual offense, or robbery, the restraint charge runs alongside those more serious offenses. Weapons or threats of violence during the restraint can influence charging decisions and sentencing.

Defenses That Can Defeat the Charge

Section 20.02 itself contains two affirmative defenses, and broader Texas criminal law provides more. Facts drive everything here, and a defense that fits cleanly can turn a felony exposure into a dismissal.

Affirmative Defenses in the Statute

The first affirmative defense protects relatives of young children. If the person restrained was a child younger than 14, the accused was a relative, and the accused’s sole intent was to assume lawful control of the child, the defense applies.¹ It typically surfaces in custody disputes where a parent or grandparent takes a child without the other parent’s agreement while genuinely believing they had the right.

The second applies to older teenagers. If the person restrained was 14 to 16, the accused used no force, intimidation, or deception, and the accused was no more than three years older, the defense is available.¹

Because these are affirmative defenses, the accused carries the burden of proving them by a preponderance of the evidence. Raising the defense is not enough; there has to be evidence behind it.

Lawful Arrest or Detention

The statute states that it is not an offense to detain or move someone for the purpose of making a lawful arrest, or to hold someone already lawfully arrested.¹ This covers officers acting on a warrant or probable cause. It also covers private citizens, who may arrest without a warrant for a felony or a breach of the peace committed in their presence.⁶ The catch: if no crime was actually committed, or the arrest exceeds what the law allows, the person doing the arresting can end up charged.

Necessity

Penal Code Section 9.22 justifies conduct when the person reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to avoid imminent harm, and the urgency of avoiding that harm clearly outweighs the harm the law is designed to prevent.⁷ Physically holding back a person about to walk into traffic is the archetype. The threat has to be immediate and the response proportional.

Consent and Lack of Intent

The offense requires intentional or knowing conduct, so a genuine mistake about whether someone agreed to stay can undercut the mental state the state must prove. Free consent to the confinement is a complete answer. Consent extracted through lies or threats is not.

When Store Detentions Cross the Line

Texas gives store owners and employees limited authority to detain a person they reasonably believe is shoplifting, under Chapter 124 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The detention has to be conducted in a reasonable manner and last only as long as necessary to investigate or wait for law enforcement. Reasonableness is where cases turn. Holding someone for hours in a back room, using excessive force, or detaining a person on no real basis for suspicion can flip a lawful stop into false imprisonment and open the business to civil damages.

Suing for False Imprisonment

A person unlawfully restrained can sue in civil court. The civil case is separate from any criminal prosecution and uses a lower standard of proof, preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. An acquittal in the criminal case does not defeat the civil claim.

What You Can Recover

Economic losses, including medical bills, therapy costs, lost wages from missed work, and legal fees paid to clear your name.
Non-economic damages for pain and suffering, humiliation, emotional distress, and harm to relationships or reputation. Courts treat the loss of liberty itself as a compensable harm, so even a short unlawful detention can support an award.
Punitive damages when the conduct was malicious or reckless, imposed on top of compensatory damages to punish and deter.

Business Defendants

Retailers and their employees are the most common civil defendants in these cases. A store that detains a customer without reasonable suspicion of theft, or holds a customer far longer than necessary, is a frequent target. Many commercial general liability policies include coverage for false arrest and detention, though that coverage typically excludes knowing violations of someone’s rights.

Suing Police or a Government Entity

When the person who restrained you was a government employee, the path to a lawsuit is narrower.

A claim against a state or local government entity has to comply with the Texas Tort Claims Act, which requires formal notice of the claim within six months of the incident.⁸ The notice has to describe the injury, the time and place of the incident, and what happened. Miss the six months and you can lose the right to sue.

The Act also caps recovery. For state government and municipalities, the ceiling is $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence for bodily injury or death. For other local government units, the cap is $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence.⁹ Those caps apply no matter how egregious the conduct.

Where a police officer or other state actor is involved, a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 may also be available.¹⁰ Section 1983 lets you sue the officer, and sometimes the municipality, in federal court without the Tort Claims Act’s damages caps. Two doctrines make these cases hard. Qualified immunity shields the individual officer unless a prior court decision with very similar facts already held the same type of conduct unconstitutional. Suing the city or county requires showing the false imprisonment resulted from an official policy, a widespread custom, or a failure to train that amounted to deliberate indifference; the employer relationship alone is not enough.

How This Differs from Kidnapping

Unlawful restraint, kidnapping, and aggravated kidnapping are three separate offenses in Texas, and the gaps in severity are large.

Kidnapping under Section 20.03 requires abduction, meaning restraint with intent to prevent the person’s liberation, and typically involves moving or concealing them.¹¹ It is a third-degree felony carrying two to ten years.

Aggravated kidnapping under Section 20.04 is a first-degree felony, punishable by five to ninety-nine years or life.¹² The charge applies when the abduction is coupled with intent to hold the victim for ransom, use them as a hostage, facilitate another felony, inflict bodily injury, sexually assault them, terrorize them, or interfere with a governmental function. Proof that the defendant voluntarily released the victim in a safe place can drop the charge to a second-degree felony.

The practical point: unlawful restraint requires no movement of the victim and no intent to prevent liberation. It is the least severe of the three. Prosecutors have discretion, though, and what starts as unlawful restraint can be upgraded to kidnapping if the evidence supports it.

Deadlines for Charges and Lawsuits

For a misdemeanor unlawful restraint charge, the state has two years from the date of the offense to file.¹³ For a felony-level charge, the deadline is three years.¹⁴ Tolling provisions can pause the clock if the accused leaves the state.

A civil false imprisonment suit falls under the two-year limitations period for personal injury claims, running from the date the unlawful restraint occurred.¹⁵ Minors and individuals with legal disabilities may get the clock paused until the disability is removed. If a government entity is a defendant, the six-month Tort Claims Act notice deadline is a separate and earlier requirement that sits on top of the two-year filing window.⁸

1
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 20.02 – Unlawful Restraint
2
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 20.01 – Definitions
3
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 12.21 – Class A Misdemeanor
4
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 12.35 – State Jail Felony Punishment
5
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 12.34 – Third Degree Felony Punishment
6
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 14 – Arrest Without Warrant
7
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 9.22 – Necessity
8
State of Texas. Texas Code Civil Practice and Remedies 101.101 – Notice
9
State of Texas. Texas Code Civil Practice and Remedies 101.023 – Limitation on Amount of Liability
10
GovInfo. 42 USC 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights
11
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 20.03 – Kidnapping
12
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 20.04 – Aggravated Kidnapping
13
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 12.02 – Misdemeanors
14
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 12.01 – Felonies
15
State of Texas. Texas Code Civil Practice and Remedies 16.003 – Two-Year Limitations Period