What Should Someone Do If They Think They May Have a Warrant?
The first thing that a person should do once they find out or think that there might be a Bench Warrant for their arrest is call a DC failure to appear lawyer. Even if you originally had one lawyer representing you before the warrant was issued you can always ask a different lawyer to help you with the warrant and then take over the rest of your case if you don’t necessarily want to keep on working with the original lawyer that you had.
So you should talk to a lawyer about the circumstances that led you to miss your hearing and be able to provide any relevant documentation such as anything showing you were in the hospital or you were in some other jail in some other state.
Then you need to plan on appearing in court with your lawyer at the earliest available date. Your lawyer cannot get your Bench Warrant quashed without your presence in court. So you and your lawyer should work on finding a date that works best for you and is as early as you possibly can come into court to go in front of the judge and take care of that warrant.
What Can We Expect During a Bench Warrant Return?
First thing someone walking in for a Bench Warrant return should expect the possibility that the judge will not quash the warrant and will hold you in jail until your next hearing. That is something that your lawyer is going to try to avoid but a person should nonetheless anticipate that possibility.
If your judge originally set a bond amount back when he first issued your Bench Warrant you should bring a companion or a family member with you who can pay your bond and secure your release in the event your judge declines to quash your warrant.
However your lawyer’s goal will be to persuade the judge to quash the warrant so that you can remain on your personal promise to appear for every future scheduled hearing.
When Can An Individual be Arrested For An Outstanding Bench Warrant?
If the judge issued an extraditable Bench Warrant you can be arrested in any state at any time. If the warrant is non-extraditable law enforcement authorities can arrest you only when you are in the district. In either situation you will rarely receive any notice that you are going to be arrested.
Will the Police Come to An Individual’s Home or Work?
More frequently people are arrested on outstanding Bench Warrants when they are stopped for routine traffic violations.
So a police officer may stop you for speeding and when the police officer runs a check on you he runs your name, runs your number plate, runs your birth date that police officer may find out from the police database that you have an open Bench Warrant for your arrest and can then go about arresting you. But on some occasions police or U.S. Marshals show up at a person’s home, job or even a family member’s home or friend’s home to try to execute the warrant against you. So for this reason it is really important to talk to a lawyer as soon as you find out that you might have a Bench Warrant.