failure to appear

What is the name of your state? FL
I had a date for an arraignment this week for bad check charges. There were several checks totalling just over $1000. I had not hired an attorney. My plans - on the advice of someone else - were to pay for the checks thru the State Attorney's office before I went to court and that I would then probably just be ordered to complete the State's bad check course.

Unfortunately I had a major family emergency. My brother found out he had a brain tumor. I completely lost track of the date of my appearance and let time slip by me. My court appearance was supposed to have been Tuesday . . . the same day he had surgery to remove the tumor. I was 4 hours away from here when I realized where I was supposed to be.

What do I do now? Is there going to be a warrant issued for my arrest because I failed to appear? Will a sheriff turn up at my door? Do I contact the court? How do I do that? Can I do it myself or do I need an attorney? I don't know how I can afford to repay the check charges AND hire an attorney. I was under the advice before that paying for the checks was of the utmost importance.

tragios said:

What is the name of your state? FL
I had a date for an arraignment this week for bad check charges. There were several checks totalling just over $1000. I had not hired an attorney. My plans - on the advice of someone else - were to pay for the checks thru the State Attorney's office before I went to court and that I would then probably just be ordered to complete the State's bad check course.

Unfortunately I had a major family emergency. My brother found out he had a brain tumor. I completely lost track of the date of my appearance and let time slip by me. My court appearance was supposed to have been Tuesday . . . the same day he had surgery to remove the tumor. I was 4 hours away from here when I realized where I was supposed to be.

What do I do now? Is there going to be a warrant issued for my arrest because I failed to appear? Will a sheriff turn up at my door? Do I contact the court? How do I do that? Can I do it myself or do I need an attorney? I don't know how I can afford to repay the check charges AND hire an attorney. I was under the advice before that paying for the checks was of the utmost importance.

Click to expand...

Yes. You gonna to the slammer. Cuz you FTA to do that.

Ignore 'combat', he is suffering battle-fatigue (from drinking beer).

To give you a correct answer.....
You have gone from what was very probably a bad situation to what is now an extremely bad situation. Had you appreared in court, you might have had an opportunity to resolve the issue. However, since you didn't show, the court has probably (95%+) issued a 'failure to appear' warrant for your arrest.

So, yes it is possible that you will get a knock on the door (usually very early in the am), or possibly a courtesy phone call. In any case, you must now get aggressive and take care of this before it becomes a much larger problem. Call the court and try to explain your circumstances. Offer to make an appearance and ask the court to set a new time. A lot of this is going to depend on the leeway of the court. The best that could happen would be that they would accept your explanation and allow the case to be reset and start anew. The worst would be that you would be making your appearance in front of the court in a new set of clothes.... jailhouse orange.

If you don't take care of this immediately, I can almost guarantee that you will eventually get the new set of 'clothes' to borrow at some point in the future (possibly when you get stopped for a traffic check).

Thanks for the advice. It was as I expected.
(I knew to ignore the first post as soon as I saw it)

I just don't know who to contact exactly or where to begin.
I certainly hope they will be lenient and set a new date.
My worst fear is that they will show up at my front door before I have a chance to try to resolve the situation.

I guess I will start with the main switchboard at the courthouse tomorrow morning and hope I can get to the right person (and hopefully a sympathetic ear)

I would just like to add a little something to Halket's reply. Remember, it is always a GOOD thing to have proof of what you are telling them. If you have any proof of your brothers' condition, hospitalization, surgery, I would reccomend that you bring that with you when you go to court. But I completely agree with Halket, take care of this situation asap, if you let time go by, and you get arrested on a warrant, your chances decrease dramatically. If you take the initiative, and let the court see that it was just an oversight because of a family problem, you might have a chance. Good luck.