Murder & Homicide Defense in McKinney & Collin County

A murder or homicide allegation is the most consequential charge a person can face in Texas, both because of the potential punishment and because the State goes to work on it right away, with homicide detectives, forensic teams, and experienced prosecutors. The defense response has to begin just as quickly. If you are searching for Collin County homicide lawyers because someone you love was arrested for murder in McKinney or anywhere in the county, the work starts now, not at the first court setting. Kent Starr has spent thirty years defending serious felonies in North Texas and is available around the clock for emergency arrests and bond hearings, the early-stage decisions that often shape the rest of a homicide case. Kent handles murder defense from his McKinney office in the county seat, where the county’s felony district courts sit.

Texas treats homicide as a graduated set of offenses under the Penal Code. Capital murder, defined in Section 19.03, includes killings committed during the course of certain felonies, the murder of a peace officer or firefighter, multiple murders, and several other narrow categories, punishable by life without parole or, in cases where the State seeks it, the death penalty. Murder under Section 19.02 is a first-degree felony, with a punishment range of five to ninety-nine years or life. Manslaughter, defined in Section 19.04, applies to reckless killings and is a second-degree felony. Criminally negligent homicide, Section 19.05, is a state jail felony reserved for deaths caused by criminal negligence rather than recklessness or intent. The line between these offenses turns on culpable mental state, and that line is often where the case is won or lost. A “murder” indictment is not a fixed verdict, through investigation, expert work, and trial preparation it can sometimes be reduced to manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, or self-defense.

How a Murder Case Moves Through Collin County

Anyone arrested for a homicide in the county is booked into the Collin County Detention Facility at 4300 Community Ave. in McKinney. Within 48 hours, a magistrate reads the warnings required by Article 15.17 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and addresses bail. For murder, that first number is usually high. For capital murder, the State can ask that bail be denied outright, and the realistic fight over release happens later, in district court, through a motion for bond reduction or a writ of habeas corpus supported by evidence the magistrate never saw.

Every Chapter 19 charge is a felony, so the case is heard in a Collin County district court at the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building, 2100 Bloomdale Road, McKinney. The Collin County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes and assigns experienced felony prosecutors to homicides early. A felony cannot proceed to trial without a grand jury indictment, and the months between arrest and indictment are not dead time. This is the window where the defense investigates while memories are fresh and preserves scene video and phone records before they disappear. In some cases Kent can put legal or mitigating material in front of the prosecutor before the grand jury votes.

After indictment come the early district court settings: announcements and pretrial conferences that look uneventful from the gallery. They are not. This is where discovery under Article 39.14 gets produced and fought over, the offense reports, the autopsy, the lab submissions, the interrogation recordings. Kent reviews that file himself and builds the suppression motions and expert consultations from it. A homicide case here is measured in months and often longer, and the early settings shape the trial long before a jury is seated.

Defenses in a Texas Homicide Case

Defense strategy in a homicide case begins with the autopsy and the scene reconstruction, not the courtroom. Texas allows broad self-defense and defense-of-third-person claims under Chapter 9 of the Penal Code, including the “stand your ground” provisions in Section 9.32. In domestic incidents, the line between domestic violence allegations and a homicide indictment can shift on the credibility of a single witness or the timing of a 911 call. Mental-state defenses, sudden passion, mistake of fact, intoxication-related diminished culpability, require expert testimony and careful pretrial motion work. Suppression of statements made during interrogation, particularly statements made before clear Miranda warnings or after a suspect invoked counsel, can change the architecture of the prosecution’s case overnight.

Sudden passion. Under Section 19.02(d) of the Penal Code, if the jury finds at the punishment stage that the defendant caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, murder is punished as a second-degree felony rather than a first-degree felony. The range drops from five to ninety-nine years or life down to two to twenty years. Sudden passion is not something a jury hands out on request. It has to be built from evidence of what happened in the moments before the death, one more reason the defense investigation cannot wait for the indictment.

Challenging the medical examiner. The autopsy report sets the State’s theory of cause and manner of death, but it is an expert opinion, not a fact. An independent forensic pathologist can re-examine wound paths, toxicology results, scene photographs, and the time-of-death estimate, then testify when the official findings do not hold up. Cross-examination of the medical examiner is often where the mental-state fight is decided, because the physical evidence of how a death happened says a great deal about whether the killing was intentional or something less.

The law of parties. Texas Penal Code Section 7.02 lets the State charge someone with murder who never fired a shot, on the theory that he aided or encouraged the person who did. These prosecutions usually lean on accomplice testimony, and Texas law treats that testimony with suspicion: under Article 38.14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a conviction cannot rest on an accomplice’s word alone. The State must corroborate it with independent evidence connecting the defendant to the offense. When the witness against you is a co-defendant working to shrink his own sentence, that corroboration requirement becomes the center of the defense. A weapons charge often rides alongside a homicide indictment, and the two have to be defended together because the firearm evidence feeds both cases.

Kent has handled more than fifteen thousand cases over three decades. The number matters less than what it represents: a working knowledge of how prosecutors build serious-felony cases and which forensic disciplines have weak points in cross-examination. He also knows how juries in Collin, Denton, Dallas, and the surrounding counties actually deliberate. He is a solo practitioner, which means clients work directly with him from the bond hearing through trial, there is no junior associate handling the cross-examination of the medical examiner.

Bond is often the first battle. Capital murder triggers a presumption against bond in Texas; first-degree murder rarely receives the bond a family hopes for at the magistrate’s first setting. A motion for bond reduction, filed early and supported by the right affidavits, can change the trajectory of the case, both because freedom helps the client participate in his defense and because being out reduces the pressure to plead. Kent works with vetted Collin County bail bond resources when bond is set, and he is on call 24/7 for the magistration window when minutes matter. For broader background on the firm’s general approach, the criminal law overview page covers the framing in more depth.

Starr Law, P.C. represents homicide clients throughout Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Johnson, and Parker Counties. Kent speaks Spanish and Portuguese for clients and families who prefer those languages.

Frequently Asked Questions About Murder Charges in Texas

Can you get a bond on a murder charge in Collin County?

In most murder cases, yes. Murder is a bondable offense in Texas, though the amount set at magistration is high and the conditions can include GPS monitoring and the surrender of any firearms. Capital murder is different: the State can ask the court to deny bail entirely. Either way, the number a magistrate sets in the first 48 hours is not final. A motion for bond reduction in district court, supported by evidence of family ties and work history, is often the first meaningful fight in the case.

What is the difference between murder and manslaughter in Texas?

Mental state. Murder under Penal Code Section 19.02 requires proof that the killing was intentional or knowing. Manslaughter under Section 19.04 covers reckless killings, and it is a second-degree felony carrying two to twenty years instead of murder's five to ninety-nine years or life. Criminally negligent homicide under Section 19.05 sits below both. Much of the work in a homicide defense goes into which mental state the evidence supports, because the same facts can look different once the forensics and witness accounts are tested.

A detective asked me to come in and tell my side of the story about a death. Should I go?

Not without a lawyer. In a death investigation, that interview is not a conversation, it is evidence collection. Detectives are trained to lock you into a timeline before you know what the forensic evidence shows, and any inconsistency, even an innocent one, will be used against you later. You have the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. Using them is not an admission of anything. Call Kent first. He handles these cases himself.

If you or a family member has been arrested for murder, capital murder, manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide, or even if a detective has only “asked you to come in and talk”, call before saying another word. Phone (214) 982-1408 for a free, confidential consultation.

How We Serve Collin County for Homicide Cases

McKinney Homicide Defense

Kent represents homicide clients from McKinney, and their Collin County cases are heard in the district courts in McKinney, the county seat.

Plano Homicide Defense

Kent represents homicide clients from Plano; their Collin County cases are heard in McKinney.

Frisco Homicide Defense

Kent represents homicide clients from Frisco; their Collin County cases are heard in McKinney, and Frisco cases can also be filed in Denton County.

Allen Homicide Defense

Kent represents homicide clients from Allen, whose Collin County cases are heard in the courts in McKinney.

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every homicide case turns on its own facts, the assigned prosecutor, and the court of jurisdiction.

ADVERTISEMENT. This site is attorney advertising. Kent Starr is responsible for the content of this website. Information provided here is general and is not legal advice; reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Homicide cases are tried in Collin County's district courts in McKinney. The firm's Collin County criminal defense hub covers the county's courts, bond process, and early settings.