Collin County Criminal Defense Lawyer

Every felony filed in Collin County, whether the arrest happened in Plano, Frisco, Allen, or McKinney itself, ends up in the same place: the courthouse in McKinney, the county seat. If you or someone you love has been charged with a crime anywhere in Collin County, what matters as much as the charge is who will stand next to you in that courthouse, in front of the judges and prosecutors who work there. Kent Starr has worked as a Collin County criminal defense attorney since 1997, and the county's courts are where most of his work happens. His office is in McKinney, and he is a solo practitioner: the lawyer you hire is the lawyer who appears at every setting.

Criminal lawyers for Collin County

People searching for criminal lawyers for Collin County usually want one thing: someone who is in these courts often enough to know how they actually run. Collin County defense lawyers are not interchangeable. The prosecutors, the judges, and the dockets here each have their own rhythm, and Kent has worked in them since 1997. He is the lawyer who appears at every setting, not an intake desk that hands you off.

The Collin County courts

Criminal cases in Collin County run through the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building at 2100 Bloomdale Road in McKinney. Felonies are heard in the district courts that sit there, a roster that includes the 199th, 219th, 296th, 366th, 380th, 401st, 416th, and 417th District Courts among others, with the 417th handling juvenile programs. Most Class A and Class B misdemeanors go to the County Courts at Law in the same complex. The Collin County District Attorney's Office prosecutes both.

Each court runs its docket differently. Some judges expect announcements early and in person. Some move pretrial motions quickly and others let them sit. Plea recommendations that one court accepts without comment draw questions in another. None of this is written down anywhere a defendant can find it. It is learned by showing up in these courtrooms for years, and it shapes practical decisions in every case: when to set a motion, when to negotiate, when to ask for a trial date.

From arrest to first setting in Collin County

After an arrest anywhere in the county, most people are booked into the Collin County Detention Facility at 4300 Community Ave. in McKinney. Some cities hold arrestees briefly in a municipal facility first, but county charges move to the county jail. A magistrate then reviews the arrest, gives the statutory warnings, and sets bond. Texas law requires this to happen promptly, and for most arrests it comes within the first day or two.

Bond is often the first thing worth fighting over. The amount, and the conditions attached to it, decide whether you sit in jail while your case is pending or go back to your job and your family. An attorney can push for a prompt magistration, argue the amount down, and ask the court to modify conditions such as no-contact orders or travel limits that collide with real life. If a loved one was just arrested, our guide to getting out of the Collin County jail walks through how bond works and the fastest paths to release. After release, the case moves to announcement and pretrial settings at the courthouse, where the real work of examining the State's evidence begins.

The first days matter more than people expect. What you say in those early hours can end up read back at trial. And the things that might help your case, like camera footage, phone records, or what witnesses still remember clearly, are easiest to lock down right after the arrest. Getting a lawyer in early is not just paperwork. It changes what there is to work with.

What the early settings actually decide

The first court dates in a Collin County case are called announcement settings, and they look uneventful from the gallery. Nothing about them is uneventful. This is when the defense receives the State’s file: the offense report, the body and dash camera footage, the lab submissions, the witness statements. Texas discovery law requires the State to turn that material over, and reading it line by line is where defenses are found. A suppression issue buried in the traffic stop. A witness whose written statement does not match what the officer summarized. A lab result that has not actually come back yet, even though the charge assumes it.

Those settings also decide pace. A case can be reset while the defense investigates, pushed toward a negotiated resolution, or set for contested hearings and trial. Each of those paths costs and protects different things, and the right one depends on the evidence, the client’s record, and what the prosecutor on that particular court’s docket is willing to do. There is no autopilot version of this. The decisions get made setting by setting, and the client should understand each one before it happens.

Collin County also runs grand juries for felony cases, and the window between arrest and indictment matters more than most people realize. Before an indictment is returned, a defense lawyer can sometimes put mitigating evidence or legal problems with the case in front of the District Attorney’s Office. After indictment, the conversation changes. If you hire counsel in that window instead of after it closes, options exist that simply do not exist later.

One more thing about this county: it is not Dallas County. The dockets are smaller, prosecutors usually have more time per case, and a weak case is less likely to slip through unexamined than it might in a bigger system. That means a sloppy defense gets caught here too. So the work is to come in more prepared than the other side, which is the one thing a defendant can actually control.

A criminal defense attorney for every Collin County charge

As a Collin County criminal defense attorney, Kent defends the full range of Texas criminal charges in the Collin County courts:

DWI and DUI. Collin County's highway corridors produce a steady stream of intoxication arrests, and the 15-day ALR clock on your driver's license starts at arrest, not at your first court date. Frisco's event-night arrests have their own pattern, covered on the firm's Frisco DWI lawyer page.

Drug crimes. Possession through distribution charges, many of which begin as traffic stops on US-75 or the Sam Rayburn Tollway and turn into vehicle searches.

Assault and domestic violence. Family-violence allegations carry consequences in Collin County that outlast the criminal case, from firearm rights to custody proceedings.

Sex crimes. The most sensitive docket in the building, where registration consequences make the defense decisions heavier than the sentence alone.

Murder and homicide. The county's most serious felony allegations, tried in the district courts with everything on the line.

Federal crimes. Some Collin County arrests move into the Eastern District of Texas; Kent handles both sides of that line, including white collar matters.

Theft and property crimes. From shoplifting allegations at the county's retail centers to felony theft and criminal mischief.

Weapons charges. Unlawful carry and felon-in-possession cases, where federal exposure often hides inside a state arrest.

Juvenile defense. Collin County juvenile matters follow their own code and their own court, and the stakes are a child's record.

Expunctions and record sealing. Clearing eligible Collin County arrests and dispositions that still show up on background checks years later.

Probation and parole violations. Motions to revoke and adjudicate move fast in this county, often with no new bond until a lawyer asks for one.

Reckless driving, evading & warrants. Reckless driving, eluding, license suspensions, and the warrants that follow missed court dates.

Animal cruelty. Charges under Penal Code chapter 42 that can carry both criminal penalties and the loss of the right to own an animal.

Kent Starr in Collin County

Kent has practiced criminal law since 1997. He works from his McKinney office in the county seat, and he keeps the practice deliberately small. There is no team of associates, no hand-off after the first meeting. Clients work with Kent from the first phone call through the last setting. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English, clerked at the Supreme Court of Arkansas and the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, and studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. The consultation is free, and payment plans are available.

He also represents Collin County residents whose cases land in neighboring counties, and clients across McKinney, Plano, Frisco, Allen, Prosper, Wylie, and Princeton have city pages with detail on how local arrests move through the system.

If you are facing a criminal charge in Collin County, call (214) 982-1408 for a free, confidential consultation with Kent.

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is evaluated on its own facts.

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