Missed my court date
April 15, 2010 8:46 PM   Subscribe

I missed my mandatory court date for a ticket I received a month ago. What do I do?

I got a ticket a month ago for hitting someone and was given a mandatory court date. I completely screwed up and forgot to attend that court date yesterday. I already left a message at the municipal court explaining what happened. Is there anything else I can do?
posted by pyrom to Law & Government (12 answers total)
 
Don't drive or do anything that might result in a police officer running your license since there is now be a warrant out on you and you will go to jail. I haven't been in your situation, but the point at which I had accidentally run afoul of legal procedure is the point at which I would contact a lawyer. Especially if I had just left a message with the prosecutor's office saying "hey, totally spaced on my court date, so sorry..."
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 8:58 PM on April 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


Don't worry excessively until you talk to the court. Call them again in the morning. Yes, you could have a warrant out on you, but you may not need to talk to a lawyer at this point unless you talk to them tomorrow and they tell you you'll be facing some kind of really terrible consequences. This surely happens pretty often down at the municipal court.
posted by ishotjr at 9:04 PM on April 15, 2010


I've been arrested several times for this kind of tiny thing. It is never enjoyable, and always ends up with at least seven hours of suffering as I wait for someone to spend time or money or both trying to get me bailed out and back on the street.

In short: just don't drive. Take the bus to the courthouse tomorrow and tell them what happened. Seriously. You don't want to risk it. They will roll their eyes and say, "oh, it's no big deal," and you won't be in some hideous trouble; it's just a formality for police: if they meet somebody with a warrant out, they have to arrest that person.

Take it from me: this is very important.
posted by koeselitz at 10:00 PM on April 15, 2010


Oh, and it's true: you really don't need a lawyer unless the ticket was for destroying some large property with your car or killing somebody or something. Missed court dates happen all the time, and the courthouse will be able to take care of it.

It's just that they have to issue a bench warrant - sometimes they 'take their time,' out of courtesy, in smaller cases, they they always will eventually, usually within a day or two - and then the police have to arrest you.

It's an annoying and worrisome technicality, I know, but it can get you thrown in jail. Just go down and talk to them in person at your earliest convenience. You should be fine, but don't drive.
posted by koeselitz at 10:03 PM on April 15, 2010


Just go down and talk to them in person

Is this really a good idea if a bench warrant has been issued?
posted by yohko at 10:06 PM on April 15, 2010


Courthouses are not police stations. They are very, very different, and for a good reason.
posted by koeselitz at 10:08 PM on April 15, 2010


I'm sorry - all of this is assuming you live in the US. If not, well, none of it applies.
posted by koeselitz at 10:09 PM on April 15, 2010


Just go down and talk to them in person

Is this really a good idea if a bench warrant has been issued?


Generally, for things like this, if you are there to clear up the warrant, they aren't going to arrest you. They want you to come take care of whatever it is you're supposed to do. The point of arresting you is to get you to do that. Arresting people who show up to take care of their warrants would just deter people from doing it by their own free will and use more police resources. So... Yes, it is a good idea to take care of this in person, but not a good idea to drive there, as koeselitz already said.
posted by ishotjr at 10:56 PM on April 15, 2010


In my experience, which was in a different state than your profile says you are in, you show up at the court house and they have a judge or magistrate whose job it is to evaluate people turning themselves in. The court has the discretion to throw you in jail or give you a small fine for missing court and reschedule you to appear for the the original ticket. In your case I am almost positive it will be closer to the latter than the former.
IANAL
posted by nestor_makhno at 11:15 PM on April 15, 2010


I missed a traffic court date once (a long time ago, and in Texas, but maybe this is helpful). They sent me information in the mail. It came in an envelope which had printed in large red letters on the outside "BENCH WARRANT ISSUED" (embarrassing). Inside it gave instructions to go to the courthouse and pay the ticket plus an additional fee for missing the date (I think, about $300).
posted by Houstonian at 3:55 AM on April 16, 2010


I missed my court date once for a speeding ticket and didn't realize it until the bench warrant was sent to my home. (It was dumb, the court date was written day-month-year, something like 09-07-2004, and I thought my court date was September 7, not July 9. Argh.)

Anyway, I called the courthouse and was told that I had to pay an extra fee, but that I would still be able to take defensive driving, etc. Practically speaking all the bench warrant did in my case was freak me out, and cost me an extra $85. (Indeed, in my case, I didn't even have to go in for the new court date; in that state and jurisdiction, requesting defensive driving could be done by mail, I believe, or possibly even online. It was a different city than where I was living at the time, so I am 100% positive I did not go to the courthouse at all.)

Also, the bench warrant had been issued for, like, two weeks before I got it in the mail and I was never stopped and certainly never taken to jail. Granted, the ticket was in a different (but nearby) city, so that may have had something to do with it, but I generally think the cops are not out tracking down people who missed traffic court dates. (If you get stopped, of course, they'll see the warrant and will have to arrest you, but they won't seek you out. So if you drive before you get this taken care of, do NOT get pulled over.)
posted by devinemissk at 6:04 AM on April 16, 2010


Response by poster: Update:
I live in a fairly small town (6000 people), which is why I think my experience wasn't as bad as the above responses predicted: I gave them another call this morning and things went really well. The woman who answered the phone was really helpful- they rescheduled the court date for later this month, with no warrant for my arrest (Whew!).

Thanks for all your responses!
posted by pyrom at 8:45 AM on April 16, 2010


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