This involves a little detective work. Modern detective work, not old-timey gumshoe stuff. First, go to your favorite Internet search engine and plug in the words “bench warrants” and your state of choice. Search results will throw a lot of attorney pages and ads for pay-to-search sites at you, but also websites like the Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff’s page listing outstanding warrants with names and current (or more likely, former) addresses.
If that doesn’t yield the intended results, it’s time to pick up the phone and get ready to make a new friend. If you’re feeling a little paranoid, maybe don’t use your own phone. There are plenty of solitary pay phones along Route 66 just begging for you to drop a dime in them without the worry of you accidentally dropping a dime on yourself.
• Call the number of the sheriff’s department for the county where you suspect the bench warrant waits and ask if they want to arrest you. Just kidding! But it is usually sheriff’s deputies who are charged with serving warrants and as with Maricopa County, they’ll have a list—it’s just not always on a helpful public site. Tell them you’re asking for a friend of a friend.
• Going to the people whose full-time gig is knocking on doors and dragging folks to jail is intimidating. I understand! I’ve had undainty dalliances with several, deal with ’em daily, part of the job. If sheriff’s departments are confusing or unnerving, here’s a different civil servant worth approaching: the city or county clerk of courts. There’s some comfort in talking to a “clerk” on the phone instead of a deputy. A clerk of courts is likely to have the information you need. In larger cities they’ll sometimes have their own websites with searchable databases. Either way, they’ll probably know if there is a warrant and what you need to do to make it go away.
• If simple measures like getting in touch with the sheriff or the clerk of courts are dead ends, you better call a lawyer. It’s like I’ve been telling people since I passed the bar: we’re insurance. Live in the shadow of Mount St. Helens? The bank holding your mortgage wants you to have volcano insurance, just in case old girl smells the Folgers and decides it’s time to wake up again. Even if there’s a chance nothing bad will ever happen, it’s smart to be prepared. Imagining the worst can be scary! We lawyers are here to help you understand what’s going on and guide you through taking care of it. A lawyer knows how to dig up the warrant and what to do about it.
Let’s say you now know that bench warrant is lurking in the shadows and it’s just a matter of time before it bites you on the ass. Now what?
If on your own you were able to pull up the details of your bench warrant—before you were arrested or had to hire a lawyer—and you’re not too tense about the situation yet, handling the problem may be, believe it or not, as simple as contacting the court that issued it and saying, “Hey, help me get back on the right side of the law!”
As always, the response will vary, but if positive vibes are aplenty and everyone in those court chambers has eaten a balanced breakfast with a heaping side of goodwill toward their fellow man, they may be pretty helpful and tell you exactly what to do. They’ll be serious and emphasize the importance of showing up and never admit bench warrants are the most passive-aggressive court document and you’ll just have to take it. Then they may work with you!
Since we’re talking bench here, as I’ve said already, there’s a good chance it’s for something minor like a traffic ticket. This can be your chance to not make a merely bad situation into an actual shitstorm. If you contact the issuing court and they say, “No problem, Mr. Good American Citizen, let’s set up another court date!” That’s actually great!
Just show up. Don’t take a pleasant walk in the park to feed the ducks. Show up. I can’t emphasize that enough. Because if a judge has already issued one bench warrant for a failure to appear, they will be more than happy to issue a second one, and this time it’ll be even more likely to crack your bank account open like a lobster claw. Before they can slurp out all your juicy, hard-earned savings, turn to an attorney. Someone whose soothing voice breaks the bad news, then lays out your next steps and runs interference for you along the way.
Imagine that now we’re back in that hypothetical holding cell with our unhappy Sunday traveler, the unlucky ice-cream seeker who was expecting a smile or a “good day” from the officer running “routine traffic stops” but got cuffs instead.
What to do? I’ll speak to the first-timer now, to whom any time in any jail cell for any reason can feel like the whole damned world crashing down on their heads. Don’t panic! If the warrant that landed you in that holding cell was signed, sealed, and delivered for a simple “failure to appear,” you’re gonna be okay, Chicken Little. Hell, now you’ve even got a mug shot, which might score you a wild date or two with a rebellious young hottie if you put it on your Farmers Only profile.
The good news, for some—if a bench warrant went out because you flaked on a misdemeanor and bail was low—kind-hearted judges may just lift that sucker off your shoulders and clear the bail. There’s a bit of a wrinkle with this good news: it really helps if a lawyer comes to court for you or with you, if this is what you want done.
Even with something the justice system views as simple and relatively minor as a bench warrant, a sharp attorney can be a lifesaver. We’ll find out if there should have been a warrant in the first place, or if the cop who plucked you from your Subaru did everything right. Arrests have been thrown out of court for constitutional violations, rights not being read, you name it. Even brand-new criminal defense attorneys can pull apart the details of a misdemeanor arrest and get it thrown out of court. We live for that shit; it’s our Sudoku or Angry Birds or what have you.
Talking about this stuff can be a real downer for anyone, so I try to top the turd sundae with a cherry of hope. No, bench warrants aren’t always a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and an unusually savvy average citizen might be able to get out of them. The good news? If the idea of hiring an attorney whose face is on billboards all over town—no matter how handsome that face is—sends visions of being broke and homeless shuffling through your head, you’re still in luck. For a fraction of the fees charged by independent counsel, city public defenders can often handle this sort of thing just fine. It’s their bread and butter.
They say that 80 percent of success is just showing up. If you remember one thing from our little chat, remember that 100 percent of avoiding bench warrants is also just showing up.
America is beginning to see the light, hallelujah! The white-hot lights on fine green ganja in grow houses everywhere, that is. Some states have finally legalized marijuana for medical use, others for playtime. Even in places where the lava lamp hasn’t been fully lit in the cobwebbed minds of lawmakers, marijuana laws have been reduced to misdemeanors—we’re talking a ticket and you can mosey off to wake-and-bake another day. A tiny $200 ticket! The guys convicted under harsh drug penalties in place a couple of decades ago salute you from the federal pens where they’re doing life for a few ounces of Chocolope or Purple Urkle.
Getting pulled over in your beat-down pickup with a couple of baggies of combustible green stowed in the wheel well can end up causing a lot of hassle for the everyday stoner.
Let’s take Nebraska as an example of a state that hasn’t seen the way, the truth, the light. Our buddies at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) inform me that if you’re found with a small amount of choice Bruce Banner’s bellybutton lint there—up to one pound—the top misdemeanor charge could be a minimal fine and a few months in jail.