What Are the Types of Court Dispositions in Texas?

A criminal case in Texas can end in one of six ways: conviction, deferred adjudication, pretrial diversion, acquittal, dismissal, or mistrial. These are the types of court dispositions in Texas, and the differences between them decide whether you serve time, whether the case shows up on background checks, whether you can legally own a firearm, and, if you are not a citizen, whether you can stay in the country. A deferred adjudication avoids a conviction under Texas law but still counts as one under federal immigration law. A dismissal usually lets you erase the record; a completed deferred adjudication usually does not. The label on the paperwork matters.

Conviction

A conviction is entered when a judge or jury finds you guilty, or when you plead guilty or no contest and the court accepts the plea and enters a judgment of guilt. Once that judgment is on the record, it stays there unless you qualify for one of Texas’s narrow post-conviction remedies.

Texas sorts offenses into misdemeanors and felonies. A Class C misdemeanor carries only a fine of up to $500, no jail.¹ Class B tops out at 180 days in county jail and a $2,000 fine; Class A at one year and $4,000.² State jail felonies run 180 days to two years. Third-degree felonies run two to ten years, second-degree two to twenty, and first-degree five to 99 years or life, with fines up to $10,000 at every felony level.³

A judge can sometimes replace jail or prison with community supervision, better known as probation. Probation still counts as a conviction. It appears on your record and can be seen by employers, landlords, and licensing boards.

What a Conviction Does to Your Rights

A felony conviction suspends your right to vote in Texas, but that right returns automatically once you finish your entire sentence, including prison, parole, and probation. No application is required.⁴

Firearms are harder. Federal law permanently bars anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing a firearm, which covers every Texas felony. A misdemeanor domestic violence conviction triggers the same permanent federal ban.⁵ A felony conviction also disqualifies you from federal jury service unless your civil rights have been legally restored.⁶

Clearing a conviction is difficult. Expunction is generally available only if you were convicted and later pardoned. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is a nondisclosure order, which limits public access without erasing the record, and eligibility is narrow.

Deferred Adjudication

Deferred adjudication is the disposition people most often misunderstand. You plead guilty or no contest and the judge finds the evidence supports guilt, but instead of entering a conviction the judge defers that step and puts you on community supervision.⁷ Complete every condition and the court dismisses the case with no conviction on the record.

The conditions resemble regular probation: drug testing, community service, counseling, meetings with a supervision officer, and whatever else the judge orders. Violate any condition, though, and the judge can revoke the deferral, enter a conviction, and impose the full punishment range for the original charge. That is the trade-off. Straight probation caps your sentence at what the judge already imposed. Deferred adjudication puts the entire maximum back on the table.

Not every charge qualifies. Texas excludes intoxication offenses like DWI, along with certain serious violent and sexual offenses.

Sealing a Deferred Adjudication Record

Finishing deferred adjudication does not automatically wipe your arrest and plea from background checks. Additional steps are needed.

For certain nonviolent misdemeanors, the court must automatically issue a nondisclosure order at dismissal, as long as at least 180 days have passed since supervision began and you have no prior convictions or deferred adjudications beyond traffic fines.⁸ Offenses involving family violence, sexual conduct, weapons, or organized crime are excluded.

If automatic nondisclosure doesn’t apply, you can petition under a broader provision. You can file immediately after dismissal for most misdemeanors, after two years for misdemeanors involving assaultive or family offenses, and after five years for felonies.⁹ The judge has to find that granting the order is in the best interest of justice. DWI and boating-while-intoxicated deferred adjudications are excluded from nondisclosure entirely, even by petition.

The Immigration Trap

Under Texas law, a completed deferred adjudication is not a conviction. Under federal immigration law, it is. The Immigration and Nationality Act treats a case as a conviction whenever the person pleaded guilty or admitted facts warranting a finding of guilt and a judge imposed any form of punishment or restraint.¹⁰ Deferred adjudication meets both parts: there is a guilty plea, and the judge imposes supervised probation. USCIS treats it as a conviction on that basis.¹¹

If you are not a citizen, a deferred adjudication for even a minor offense can trigger removal proceedings, block re-entry, or sink a pending green card application. That is true whether or not you complete the supervision. Talk to an immigration attorney before accepting any plea.

Pretrial Diversion

Pretrial diversion sits outside the court’s formal process. The prosecutor pauses or declines prosecution while you complete a program, and you never enter a plea. No plea means no admission of guilt on the record, which is what distinguishes diversion from deferred adjudication.

Programs are run by prosecutors’ offices, not judges. Each Texas county decides whether to offer them and who qualifies, and they generally target first-time offenders facing nonviolent charges. Harris County, for instance, offers a misdemeanor marijuana diversion program for people arrested on small-amount marijuana charges.¹² Other counties run programs for drug offenses, mental health, or veterans.

Finish the program and the charges are dismissed with nothing filed in court. Fail to finish and the prosecutor moves ahead with the original case. For immigration purposes, diversion generally does not count as a conviction because there is no guilty plea or admission.¹¹ When it’s available, diversion is a far safer option than deferred adjudication for non-citizens.

Acquittal

An acquittal means the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A jury can return a not-guilty verdict, a judge in a bench trial can reach the same conclusion, or a judge can direct a verdict of acquittal when the evidence is so weak no reasonable jury could convict.

An acquittal ends the case for good. The state cannot retry you for the same offense. The Fifth Amendment forbids being placed in jeopardy twice for the same crime,¹³ and the Texas Constitution adds its own bar: no person can be “again put upon trial for the same offense, after a verdict of not guilty in a court of competent jurisdiction.”¹⁴

The arrest itself does not disappear automatically. You still need to file for expunction. Texas law entitles anyone tried and acquitted to have all records related to the arrest expunged, so the process is straightforward.

Dismissal

A dismissal ends the prosecution without deciding guilt or innocence. It can happen at any point before a final verdict. The prosecutor files a written motion explaining why the case should be dropped, and the judge must approve it. No Texas case can be dismissed without the presiding judge’s consent.¹⁵

Reasons vary. A key witness becomes unavailable, new evidence undercuts the charges, a search turns out to have been unconstitutional, or the defendant’s speedy trial right was violated. A dismissal doesn’t declare you innocent. It just means the state can’t or won’t proceed.

Because a dismissal is not an acquittal, double jeopardy usually does not stop the state from refiling the same charges later, as long as the statute of limitations hasn’t run. On the other hand, a dismissal opens the door to expunction after a waiting period tied to the original charge:

Class C misdemeanor: at least 180 days from the date of arrest.
Class A or B misdemeanor: at least one year from the date of arrest.
Felony: at least three years from the date of arrest.

The waiting period can be waived if the prosecutor certifies the records are not needed for any ongoing investigation.¹⁶ Important limit: if you were placed on court-ordered community supervision for the offense, you generally cannot expunge the record even if the case was later dismissed, unless the charge was a Class C misdemeanor.

Mistrial

A mistrial means the trial ended without a verdict. The most common cause is a hung jury: the jurors deliberate and cannot reach a unanimous agreement. Texas law lets the judge discharge the jury when it cannot agree, either with both sides’ consent or when the judge determines that agreement is no longer possible.¹⁷

Other causes include serious procedural errors, juror misconduct, and unexpected events that make a fair trial impossible, like a juror’s medical emergency or a witness blurting out inadmissible information in front of the jury.

After a mistrial, the prosecution decides whether to try the case again or let it drop. Double jeopardy usually doesn’t bar retrial, because there was no final verdict. The main exception is prosecutorial misconduct: if the prosecutor deliberately provoked the mistrial to get a second shot at conviction, a court may block a retrial. Most hung-jury mistrials end in a new trial date, though prosecutors sometimes read the deadlock as a signal to negotiate a plea or dismiss.

Clearing Your Record: Expunction vs. Nondisclosure

Texas offers two tools for limiting what shows up on your record, and they work very differently. Which one you can use depends on which disposition ended your case.

Expunction

Expunction destroys the records. Agencies holding arrest records, booking photos, and court files must delete them. Afterward, you can legally deny the arrest happened. Texas allows expunction when you were acquitted, when charges were dismissed (subject to the waiting periods above), when charges were never filed after a set time, or when you were convicted and later pardoned.¹⁶

Expunction is not available if you completed deferred adjudication for anything above a Class C misdemeanor. That catches people who assume a dismissal after deferred adjudication works like any other dismissal. It doesn’t. Because deferred adjudication involves court-ordered supervision, the statute excludes it from expunction at most offense levels. Nondisclosure is the only option in those cases.

Nondisclosure Orders

A nondisclosure order seals the record instead of destroying it. Government agencies can no longer release the information to the public, including most private employers and landlords, but law enforcement, licensing boards, and certain government entities still see it.¹⁸

Nondisclosure is the main remedy for people who finish deferred adjudication. Some nonviolent misdemeanors qualify for automatic nondisclosure at dismissal; felonies and heavier misdemeanors need a petition with waiting periods running as long as five years.⁹ DWI is excluded entirely. A DWI deferred adjudication stays visible permanently, with no way to seal it.

Texas also has nondisclosure provisions for certain convictions, but eligibility is limited and the waiting periods are longer. Requirements vary by offense and by misdemeanor-versus-felony status. The Texas Office of Court Administration publishes an overview of every nondisclosure type, and it is worth reading before filing a petition.

1
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code 12.23 – Class C Misdemeanor
2
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code Chapter 12 – Punishments
3
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code 12.32 – First Degree Felony Punishment
4
Texas Secretary of State. Effect of Felony Conviction on Voter Registration
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
6
United States Courts. Juror Qualifications, Exemptions and Excuses
7
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 42A.101 – Deferred Adjudication; Community Supervision
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State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.072 – Procedure for Deferred Adjudication Community Supervision; Certain Nonviolent Misdemeanors
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State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.0725 – Procedure for Deferred Adjudication Community Supervision; Felonies and Certain Misdemeanors
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1101 – Definitions
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual – Adjudicative Factors
12
Harris County Sheriff’s Office. 512 – Misdemeanor Marijuana Diversion Program
13
Congress.gov. Fifth Amendment
14
Justia Law. Texas Constitution Article 1 Section 14 – Double Jeopardy
15
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Sean Allen Smith v. The State of Texas – Opinion 1862-98
16
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 55.01 – Right to Expunction
17
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 36.31 – Disagreement of Jury
18
Texas Courts. Overview of Orders of Nondisclosure