DIVERT

Harris County District Attorney’s Office DIVERT Program and Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 2, Judge Harmon

November 3, 2011

David Mitcham may have successfully figured out how to professionally and respectfully handle the DIVERT issue in Court 2, the issue being that Judge Harmon has (probably correctly) used his informal veto power and said he will not allow an otherwise qualified DWI defendant to enter into the DA’s makeshift deferred adjudication program for first [...]

Read the full article →

Harris County DA changes DIVERT contract to not agree to full expunction

July 12, 2011

On Monday July, 11th, 2011, the DA’s office changed its DIVERT policy to no longer agree to a full expunction of all information relating to the DWI arrest. Here is the exact language found in the contract a person will be required to sign: “The defendant further acknowledges and agrees that in the event that [...]

Read the full article →

Changes to DWI DIVERT Policy

January 15, 2010

The DA’s office announced last week that they are changing the DIVERT policy to now accept offenders who live out of state. I had a couple clients that lived out of state and were arrested back in August. We were told that they were ineligible for DIVERT because they had to live in Texas. Those [...]

Read the full article →

Man wants out of DIVERT Program

November 28, 2009

I got a call from a gentleman who says he is on the DIVERT program and wants out. Says his lawyer never went over any of the paperwork with him and basically told him he had to take the DIVERT program. He told me that he already told the probation officer he is not going [...]

Read the full article →

Pre-Divert plea bargain for client on day of trial!

September 22, 2009

Today I was set for trial on a defendant who had previously rejected the DIVERT program. The state’s offers, in accordance with their new DIVERT plan had been 30 days in jail or the DIVERT. We did lots of work preparing for trial and we showed up and announced ready for trial today and the [...]

Read the full article →

More Harris County DIVERT News

September 22, 2009

WARNING…anybody planning on sending their clients to a DIVERT interview or for any people reading this that are currently charged with a DWI and who are considering DIVERT…THEY WILL DRUG TEST YOU! Not only are they not honoring their promise to me to not ask lots of question about the facts of the case (see [...]

Read the full article →

New DIVERT Literature

September 15, 2009

This is laughable – the chiefs were just given this on Friday afternoon. The last paragraph is my favorite – funny how it’s the last paragraph and on the back side! We won’t use anything they say in the interview against them – EXCEPT – for pretty much anything we can, if we can find [...]

Read the full article →

Divert and Indigency?

September 11, 2009

I have two clients who are eligible for DIVERT on their first offense DWI but they cannot afford to pay the $202 for the initial qualifying SALCE interview. What are these people supposed to do? They can apparently fill out a regular indigency affidavit and hope they will be shown some mercy but the common [...]

Read the full article →

DIVERT ALERT!!!

August 28, 2009

I accompanied a client to a DIVERT interview a week and half ago and met Raymie Hairell-Sweat, the person in charge of this program at 49 San Jacinto. She was very professional and did an excellent job at calming my concerns about what questions would be asked of my client about the actual incident. I [...]

Read the full article →

First DIVERT Interview

August 13, 2009

I accompanied a client to my first DIVERT interview yesterday at the Probation Center at 49 San Jacinto. I was allowed to walk up to the 4th floor with my client even though there were signs that said attorneys must remain on the first floor. I was allowed to go into the first room to [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries