Warrant search following arrest

[TroyAve]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Iowa

Is it common for police to run a search for outstanding arrest warrants in all 50 states after making an arrest?

What if they find a warrant from another state on a minor issue (say, unpaid traffic ticket)? Can they make you pay off the other state's traffic ticket before letting you go?

[tranquility]

In the age of computers, with an arrest, I'd say it is very common. The person running the check probably has only a slight more effort to run them all over just their state. But, who cares if it's common?

Did they?

Can they make you pay before letting you go? Did they? It's certainly cheaper for all involved then shipping you back to the state where the warrant is.

[Some Random Guy]

In all likelihood, they are not going to contact all 50 states looking for warrants. Instead they will just look in the NCIC for warrants that each state has reported to the centralized database.

[TroyAve]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Did they?

Can they make you pay before letting you go? Did they? It's certainly cheaper for all involved then shipping you back to the state where the warrant is.

As it happened, no, they did not. I was not arrested at all. cops came to my door with a warrant because I had an unpaid traffic ticket. I paid the ticket, cops went away. But if they had decided to take me in, I wonder what would have happened had they done a warrant check and found an unpaid ticket from another state.