What can I do if I missed my court date? 69 Answers as of October 04, 2011

Generally speaking, in criminal cases, defendants are required to attend all their court-proceedings. However, this policy varies depending on the type of court proceeding and a person's particular circumstances. If they fail to appear, the court may issue a bench warrant for their arrest and forfeit their bond. Failing to appear may be treated as contempt of court and result in further incarceration. However, prior to taking any such action, the arraigning judge will at least provide a defendant an opportunity to provide an explanation. I'd recommend either contacting your current attorney or acquiring an attorney to assist you with this matter.

Go to the court that you were assigned to and check in with the bailiff. He will tell the clerk that you are there and why. It will help if you bring in the paper work that you have on the case. The case will be called and the judge will ask you why you did not show up. You may get a scolding by the judge but you should not have to go to jail.

Call the court and explain why you missed your court date and how any warrant can be withdrawn.

You should turn yourself in immediately, depending on the case and your history it may not be a big deal or it may be cause for the judge to hold you. The more serious the charge and the more history of kissing court dates the more likely a judge will decide to hold you. If you have no history of missing court and it's not an especially serious charge you should be fine, otherwise hire an attorney quickly and have the attorney turn you in.

A warrant likely issued for your arrest. You can surrender at any police station and usually pay a bond to get released and get another court date. You can also bring the matter into the court asking that the warrant be quashed with a reasonable explanation of why you missed court and ask for another date.

Missing a criminal court date results in the issuance of a default warrant, which allows the police to arrest you for your failure to appear. To remove the warrant, you will need to go to court and appear before a judge, who can remove the default. If this is a one time event, there will likely be no further action against you. If you have an attorney, make sure you contact them so they can guide you the process.

It depends on what you were going to court for. Most likely if you missed your court date, then a warrant for your arrest would be issued, but that's something that you can go to the police or municipal court and post bail on to which you would get another court date. But again it depends on what the court appearance was for.

Court date for what? How long ago? Why did you miss? What is your record like? If you missed your court date, a warrant for your arrest may I've been issued. It's always better to deal with this by going to court (with your lawyer), rather than waiting to be arrested on the warrant. The longer you wait, the worse it looks and the worse it could get. Talk to a local criminal defense attorney.

contact the clerk's office and have the matter calendared. You would be better off with an attorney doing this and appearing with you if you can afford it to minimize the chance the judge would take you into custody.

You should contact the court and advise that you missed the date and make arrangements to appear. It will be up to the judge as to any possible punishment. What will happen will depend on why you missed your court date.

If you miss your court date, they usually issue a warrant for your arrest. If you hire a lawyer quickly, the lawyer might be able to get the court date rescheduled and prevent you from being arrested.

If the case is charging you with a misdemeanor only, an attorney can appear for you on most misdemeanors in order to clear any warrants, and then handle the case. If the charge was felony level, you would have to go to court along with the attorney to clear the arrest warrant (which would have issued when the court date was missed.)

It is obviously critical as to what you are charged with when you missed the court date. If it is a felony there will be a warrant out for you, if it is a petty misdemeanor traffic it may get reported to the DPS. Whether or not you get jail time is incumbent on what you are charged with and what convictions you have on your prior history. Please contact a lawyer and talk this through along with your options.

Call the Clerk, ask to be added to calendar and come up with a damn good excuse. Here is where you really need a private attorney or the public defender.

If you did not show up for a court date, the judge probably issued a bench warrant meaning you could possibly go to jail. It doesn't mean you will, but it's possible. A lot will depend on what your excuse is and how soon you get it taken care of. It is in your best interest that you take care of it as soon as possible. Get a lawyer if necessary to help you along.

If you missed your court date, there will probably be a bench warrant issued for your arrest. You should hire a criminal defense attorney, go to court, recall the bench warrant and quash it. Whether you get jail time or not, it will all depend on the criminal charges that the prosecution filed against you.

Call your lawyer. If you do not have one, hire one. You will need one to represent you and you may be able to do something about your bond if it just happened like today. If not, then you will probably have to post a new bond and then attend court faithfully to deal with your case.

You should contact your attorney to surrender you on the bench warrant. Buy a daily diary to keep your important dates and times. It is important to know where you have to be and to be early, it is a part of being an intelligent, mature person who is responsible.

You should contact your attorney or the court's baliff immediately. If you arrange to come in, you might be able to avoid being arrested on the outstanding warrant. But the worst thing you can do is wait until you are arrested on the warrant, which could lead to you being in jail until your case is finished.

It depends on what your court date was for. If you miss a scheduled court date, chances are there was a bench warrant issued for your arrest for failure to show. I would immediately contact the court, or better yet, through a lawyer contact the court, to get another court date and try to have the warrant withdrawn by the court pending the new court date. Don't miss again!!! If you are stopped and the police see an active warrant, they have no choice but to arrest you and bring you before a judge. If this occurs on a Friday night or where no judge is immediately available, you will spend that time in jail pending your court appearance.

Whether you do jail time depends upon your prior history and whether or not you have missed court dates in the past. You need to contact the clerk of the court and see about getting the matter rescheduled. A warrant has probably been issued and if you don't get this resolved, you could possibly get picked up and taken to jail.

Contact your lawyer or if you don't have one, call the court clerk to see if it's been re-scheduled. If not, then ask that it be added to the next available calendar. If a warrant has been issued, then arrange to surrender yourself, preferably with a lawyer.

If you missed a court date, a warrant would issue for your arrest. There are three things that may be possible, with the assistance of an attorney, you may be able to have the warrant stayed pending a new hearing dates. In some instances, it may also be possible to have a cash bail set for release depending on the nature and severity of the charges. The third option is to report in to the jail on the warrant and have the matter called before the court as soon as possible to set bail or conditions of further release.

If you miss a court date, you should contact your attorney immediately. If you don't have an attorney, get one. If you cannot afford an attorney, contact the public defender. It is very important that you contact the court before they find and arrest you.

Turn yourself in on the outstanding warrant, ask to quash thd recall the warrant, but be prepared to post the new bail assessed by the court, if you do not have success in getting released on your old bond. It is better if you turn yourself in with an attorney, who can argue for your release, and have someone with you who can post bail right away.

There will be a warrant for your arrest probably. Get a good lawyer to go in and explain and get you more time to avoid jail.

Depending on what the court hearing is regarding, there may be a warrant out. If you go to court on your own you run the risk of being detained. The best option is to hire an attorney to have the Judge "recall the warrant" and set a new court date.

Missing Court date - California If you missed a court date in California, the judge presiding over your case likely issued a Bench Warrant. This means, if you are stopped by the police, or they happen to go to your house, you can be arrested. In order to prevent being arrested, you'll need to go to the Criminal Clerk's window and ask that your case be "added-on" to the Court's calendar. Typically, you need to get to the Court's Criminal Clerks' department no later than 8:30 a.m., in order to get your case heard that same day. Although the judge has the authority to place you into custody, if your charge is a minor misdemeanor, it is unlikely (however not impossible), that the judge will reprimand you into custody. If you're charged with a Felony, and you posted bail to get out of jail originally, you should go to court with an attorney. This may be your only way of convincing the court to leave you out of jail on bail.

Depends. If you missed it recently and go in to court and tell them that you mixed up the dates, it is likely that nothing will happen. If you are worried and it is a misdemeanor, you can hire a lawyer to appear for you.

Depends on what Court and what the charge was - usually in Municipal Court the Judge issues an FTA (Failure to Appear) Notice warning you that if you do not appear for the new date listed on the FTA a Warrant will issue. If it is a Superior Court charge, again, depending on the charge and the type of Hearing, a Warrant will issue. My suggestion is to contact the Court and get some more information.

Go into court immediately, or hire an attorney to do so for you. Add yourself back on the Court's calendar and ask to have the warrant recalled, that is most likely placed. The longer you wait, the more likely it will be for a judge to decide to take you into custody.

It is always best to go to court as soon as possible and take care of the warrant. If this was the first missed court date for you, probably you will just get warned by the judge to keep better track of the courts date in the future.

Contact your attorney immediately as you have to turn yourself in as soon as possible. You could get a contempt of court charge (on top of your original charges) depending on the Judge and the reason why you missed court. Talk to your attorney about what potential consequences.

Whenever you miss a court date, the court will issue a warrant for your arrest. As such, you should immediately appear in court to recall the warrant. As a general rule, you should never appear in court to recall a warrant without a lawyer to represent you as this could be the difference between going in and staying out of jail. As such, you should immediately contact an experienced criminal defense attorney to explain your case and situation and go into court for you to recall the warrant. Depending on what kind of charges you have, the attorney may be able to recall the warrant without you ever having to go into court yourself. I hope this answer was helpful.

Call the court right now and tell them why you missed. Ask them if they will set you up a new court date. Don't miss that one. Sometimes they will take off the warrant, sometimes they won't but don't just ignore it. It won't go away. You can receive jail time for failure to appear but usually won't if you take care of it.

The first unanswered question is what was the underlying offense. It is possible that you were tried in your absence. You should contact the clerk's office and if necessary, make arrangements to turn yourself in.

Call asap the prosecutor and explain your situation in detail. Likely, a warrant has been issued for your arrest. Call the clerk's office of the court which your case is in.

You should call the court and reschedule.

I would advise contacting the clerk of court. It's possible that a warrant was issued at that missed hearing; you want to find this out. If there is an outstanding bench warrant, you will want to request that it be quashed.

Yes, contact an attorney immediately and have an attorney contact the court on your behalf to inquire as to whether there is an arrest warrant for you. If there is a warrant, the attorney should have it quashed as soon as possible. If there is not a warrant, you may have a drivers license suspension or other penalty. A lawyer should be able to help you. Time is of the essence so you don't get arrested.

You need to hire an attorney. A Failure to Appear usually results in an additional charge, fines, and a warrant for your arrest. An attorney may help you avoid these things if you act quickly enough.

If you have a lawyer you need to contact that lawyer asap and make arrangements to go to court. If you do not have a lawyer you need to contact a lawyer in your area asap. This is a situation where prompt action can make a real difference, warrants can be recalled and bonds can be lowered. However, if you wait everything just gets harder and the judge will most likely believe that you have been running so you can use drugs or get away with more crime.

You need to get an attorney to get it fixed. Many times they can get you put back on the docket or help you with the punishments.

When you miss a court date a bench warrant is usually issued for your arrest. Immediately contact your attorney or the court and ask that a hearing be set to quash the warrant.

If you miss a court date, also known as "failure to appear," a judge will most likely issue a bench warrant for your arrest. The best thing you can do is call the court and explain the situation, tell them you want set up a hearing to quash the bench warrant, go to court and tell the judge why you missed your hearing. If the judge feels your reason is valid, the bench warrant will be quashed and a new court date will be set. Although, I don't recommend doing this without an attorney.

Do you have a lawyer? Otherwise, contact the court with a good explanation because the court will most likely have issued a bench warrant for your arrest. You may need to turn yourself in and the Judge will decide whether s/he wants to set bail or not depending on the case.

You need to contact the court and find out the procedure for quashing the warrant. Some courts have a walk in calendar where you can explain the circumstances and ask the judge to recall the warrant.

There was probably a bench warrant issued for your arrest. You need to go into court to have the warrant canceled. Whether or not you are looking at jail or not depends on the circumstances. It's possible to cancel the warrant on your own but it will be much easier for you to hire a criminal defense attorney.

Hiring an attorney will be your best option. An attorney can negotiate with the prosecutor and have any warrants for your failure to appear withdrawn or recalled. When you miss a court date the judge automatically will issue an FTA warrant so that you can be picked up by the police and brought before the judge to answer for your case. If you hire an attorney prior to being arrested for the FTA it may be avoided. An attorney may be able to recall the warrant and reset your case for another date which will give you time to talk to them about your options.

You have to contact your lawyer and arrange a surrender date.

You can call the court to try to see if the date can be rescheduled. If not, and a bail has been set on a warrant, you can post the bail or bond and be given a new court date. If neither of those is an option, turn yourself in to the county jail as soon as possible, and you may be released without bail given that you turned yourself in.

Jail time is in regards to your crime. However, you probably do have a warrant out for your arrest.

You will have a warrant for your arrest. You need to hire an attorney to work with a bail bonds company to keep you out of trouble.

You should have an attorney go to court without you to recall the warrant and obtain a new court date. If you go to court by yourself, you could be taken in custody.

So much depends on the court, the judge and how long you have waited. Is it a misdemeanor or a felony? Usually if the attorney knows the court, the warrant, if any, can be recalled without penalty. This is again depending on the above factors. Hire a lawyer that knows the court. Don't try to do this without counsel.

Get in touch with your attorney right away. Sometimes the court will reschedule the date, and the quicker you try, the better your odds are. If you can't get the date rescheduled you may have to turn yourself into the police to get a new court date. Since there's a warrant out for your arrest, you could be arrested at any time, so it's a bad idea to just forget about it.

You don't want to miss criminal court dates under any circumstances. Likely you're bail is revoked, and a bench warrant is issued for your arrest. Generally, you need to have the warrant quashed (not "squashed"). Circumstances vary on how to accomplish that.

This depends upon how long it has been since the missed date. If it is very recent, you can most likely have your attorney call for another court date. If it has been a while, you probably have a warrant issued already and your attorney would need to surrender you to get the new court date. Missing a court date can place you in a position where you may have to post a bond to be released for court. An attorney is helpful in these situations.