I have a warrant but there was no arraignment, what can I do? 8 Answers as of March 12, 2012

You probably were sent a letter by the DA with a court date for you to appear, which you did not respond to. Now, to properly handle warrants, you must turn yourself into the issuing court, with or without an attorney, and try to negotiate a recall of the warrant[s] and a plea bargain on the new Failure to Appear charge. You'll try to negotiate bail reduction or OR release. You'll try to negotiate a plea bargain or take to trial the outstanding charges that caused the warrant. Turning yourself in voluntarily will result in a better outcome than being brought in cuffs to court after arrest on the warrant. On felony charges, the defendant must be personally present at every court hearing and appearance. On misdemeanors, the attorney can appear in court without the defendant being present. Effective plea-bargaining, using whatever legal defenses, facts and sympathies there may be, could possibly keep you out of jail/prison, or at least dramatically reduce it. Unless you're competent to effectively represent yourself in court against a professional prosecutor trying to put you in jail, most people hire an attorney who can.

You should calendar the matter preferably through an attorney and appear in court before you are arrested. You should also contact a bail bonds company and be prepared to post the bail set for the offenses.

Contact a criminal defense lawyer as soon as you can. This situation happens frequently. Police arrest someone and forward their reports to the District Attorney. The DA reviews the reports and decides whether to file charges, which charges to file or to request additional investigation. Sometimes law enforcement submits the additional investigation and then the DA decides to file charges. You should meet with a criminal defense lawyer to discuss your options.

Hire an attorney to handle this case for you. 9 days in custody, certainly a strong argument in my book that an official arrest was made (obviously you were not free to go at any time). It is important to get the warrant recalled and quashed while attacking the case. I argue that an arrest is made when someone is pulled over for an infraction on the side of the road for 20 minutes when fighting to suppress statements based on lack of miranda warning.

Hire a lawyer, who can go to court to recall the warrant without you. That's better than you showing up by yourself and being taken into custody.

Sounds like the DA decided to file charges, so a warrant was issued. Does the letter give you a date to appear? If so, appear on that date and ask for a court appointed attorney or hire an attorney to represent you given the felony charges you are facing.

You need to take care of the warrant immediately. Talk to an attorney who has success with drug cases. After arraignment your attorney can bring up any due process issues. But you do not want that warrant to remain outstanding.

In order to resolve those matters, which do appear from the charges to be felony charges (for at least one), I would highly recommend contacting an attorney in your local jurisdiction to assist you. The warrant could possibly be cleared, and your matter can most likely be placed on the court's calendar to resolve the warrant issue and arraign you on your charges. When the DA issues charges, they send a warrant out for your arrest to bring the matter to court. Since it appears nobody has attempted to serve the warrant and arrest you, it would help to have that resolved ASAP and contact an attorney.