A Bench warrant is usually issued by a Judge to bring a non-appearing person to court after they have missed their court date. This normally happens when you are supposed to come to court and you miss your court date and the Judge basically issues a warrant for your arrest for your failure to appear. Bench warrants are normally only issued by a Judge if you are being charged with a misdemeanor or felony and you do not appear in court on your scheduled court date.
A bench warrant is essentially an order to arrest a particular person and bring him or her before the issuing judge. Bench warrants allow the police to handcuff and take you to jail to be held until you are brought before the Judge.
If you fail to come court for your DUI arraignment, you risk having the judge issue a bench warrant for your arrest.
A warrant can be issued without notification
If you have been cited for a DUI and you do not go to court, the Judge or court will almost always issue a warrant for your arrest – and many times they do it without any notification at all. People usually find out about it the hard way, either by the police or a job background check.
You can be handcuffed and taken to jail by the police
Bench Warrants can present problems for you if you are pulled over by the police and while checking your record they see a bench warrant for your arrest. A bench warrant allows the police to handcuff you and take you to jail to hold you in jail until you are taken to see the Judge at the courthouse who issued the bench warrant for your arrest.
If there is a bench warrant issued for your arrest please contact us immediately so that we can help you get this warrant recalled. We specialize in helping people with their bench warrants.
Do I have a warrant?
The best way to check to see if you have a bench warrant or arrest warrant or Failure to Appear warrant in Los Angeles County is to go the courthouse listed on your ticket which is a Notice To Appear and go to BOTH the traffic clerk window and the criminal clerk window and have them run your name and date of birth through a warrant search on the court computer.
Unfortunately because of budget cutbacks, it is very difficult to speak to someone by phone at Los Angeles county courthouses to see if you have a warrant for your arrest. If you like you can call us at 310-285-1516 to speak with a Los Angeles DUI and Traffic Attorney and we can try to help you find out if there is a warrant for your arrest in a Los Angeles county courthouse.
