Having an outstanding arrest warrant can prevent you from living your life. The perpetual fear of arrest looming overhead can be debilitating. With the advancement of technology, warrants are increasingly difficult to evade. You risk being detained anytime. Just a simple traffic infraction could land you in jail.
Furthermore, your outstanding warrant will not disappear with time, there is no statute of limitations. You will be compounding the ill effects of your outstanding warrant by simply ignoring it. Burying your head in the sand only puts you at risk for additional charges, fines, and jail time.
Three of the most common types of warrants in Massachusetts are: default, straight, and arrest warrants. Default warrants are issued when one fails to appear in court. When you fail to appear in Court on your scheduled Court date, most of the time the Court will issue a hold for Court warrant as well. This means that when law enforcement officers eventually catch up with you, the bail commissioner will not be able to set a bail. You will be held until you can appear before the Court, typically at the Court’s next sitting. So, if you are picked up on a hold for Court warrant on Friday night, you will not go in front of the Court until Monday, and maybe even not until Tuesday, if it is a holiday weekend. Straight warrants are typically issued as a result of a criminal complaint or indictment. With a straight warrant a police officer might not arrest you when you are charged with a misdemeanor charge, but will take down your information and let you know that you should expect to see a Criminal Summons in the mail. A lot of times it can take weeks or even months to process the Criminal Summons (depending on how busy the particular Court Jurisdiction), and someone may end up moving or having a different mailing address, and the Criminal Summons, does not catch up with the person. Many times the Court will issue a hold for Court warrant when an individual does not show up at his or her Summons Arraignment. Another type of warrant is an arrest warrant. An arrest warrant is signed off on by a Judge or Magistrate, where they believe that Probable Cause exists that a person committed a crime. An arrest warrant will give law enforcement officers the ability to arrest you on sight.
Avoiding a warrant of any nature is a good idea. The problem can be compounded when you are picked up on a warrant out of state. It might take weeks or even months to transport you back to the state the warrant originated out of, and you most likely will not get any jail credit for the time you are incarcerated in the other state. Also, warrants typically affect one’s ability to get a driver’s license, business license and/or professional license. It is not uncommon for someone to have a warrant out of Massachusetts, for something that happened years ago, and for that warrant to finally catch up with that person ten (10) years later in California. Nowadays, computer technology has allowed the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to communicate with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in other states about outstanding warrants. This means that the California DMV will not give you a new California Driver’s License, when you go to renew your Driver’s License because of a misdemeanor arrest warrant that you have in Massachusetts that dates back over ten (10) years. Even though you possessed a California Driver’s License for that last five (5) years and you no longer live in Massachusetts.
By enlisting the help of a criminal defense attorney experienced in dealing with outstanding warrants you can move on with your life. If you are aware that you have an outstanding warrant, the wisest thing you can do is to address it before you are arrested. Almost always the wisest thing to do is to turn yourself in on the warrant and walk in there with your attorney. Turning yourself in, with your attorney present is a lot better than to be brought in by law enforcement officers, and show the Court that you may be a flight risk. With adequate legal assistance, your outstanding warrant can be put behind you.
You have legal options to combat your warrant before it spirals out of control. Attorney Paul Moraski assists those with outstanding warrants in Massachusetts as well as throughout the country. If you have an outstanding warrant in a criminal matter, please contact
Massachusetts Criminal Defense Attorney Paul R. Moraski at (978) 744-1200. Paul R. Moraski, Esq.
The Law Office of Paul R. Moraski
221 Essex Street, Suite 51
Salem, Massachusetts 01970
Tel: 978.744.1200
Fax: 978.825.1370
Email: attorneymoraski@yahoo.com
