April 21, By The Hoffman Firm. Bench and Probation Warrants Sometimes, the details of your court date might be miscommunicated, or an accident prevents you from showing up on time. Contempt of Court Essentially, contempt of court refers to disobeying a court order. Indirect contempt of court may mean that you had a legitimate reason for missing the court date or an outside error that prevented your attendance.
If this happens, the court must send you a notice and schedule an opportunity to explain your situation to the judge. Direct contempt of court means that you purposefully avoided attending your hearing or court appointment.
In these cases, you could be punished without a trial. Civil contempt charges apply to those who refuse to obey a court order but eventually perform the required action. If the individual finally agrees to obey the court, the contempt charges may be dropped.
Some common examples of when you might have to appear in court include:. In most situations when you are required to appear in court, you must appear at a specific scheduled date and time. For example, if the police give you a traffic ticket, it usually has a court date on it.
The court date is the day that you must go to court. In other words, you did not show up for court when you were supposed to. When this happens, the court will often charge you with Failure to Appear In Court. Many courts use the abbreviation FTA.
FTA means in court that a criminal charge has been made against you for not showing up. Failure to appear is a crime that can lead to criminal penalties. There are many possible consequences for failure to appear. The consequences will depend on the facts of your specific situation. In some cases, you may be required to just pay a small fine.
In other cases, a judge may issue an arrest warrant. Generally, making an appearance in court is very simple. The place, time and date are all part of your court date. Your court date will be in a legal document. The most common legal documents that have a court date and state that you must appear in court include:.
Citations are most often given by police officers when an individual is stopped because they violated traffic law. The citation is often called a traffic ticket.
It is given to a person for certain speeding and moving violations. On the citation or traffic ticket, there will be a section that tells you the place, date and time that you must appear in court. In some situations, you can decide to just pay the fine before your court date.
If you decide to do this, you might not have to appear in court. It is a good idea to call the traffic court to make sure they received your payment and that you do not need to show up. You can usually find the phone number for the traffic court by searching the internet.
There are many reasons why you might want to appear in court when you get a traffic ticket. If you go to court, you can plead guilty to the traffic violation but ask for a smaller fine. You can also try to make a deal where you plead guilty to a less serious traffic charge that has lower penalties. Lastly, you can also decide that you want to plead not guilty and ask for a trail in traffic court. A summons is a legal document used in criminal cases and civil lawsuits.
Defendants in a criminal case and all parties involved in a lawsuit must get a summons. The summons will include the date, time and place where a court hearing will take place.
It is a very important legal document. If you receive a summons, you must respond to it and appear in court on the scheduled date. There can be serious consequences for ignoring a summons. If you do not respond or appear, you could lose your civil lawsuit. Most times the failure to appear is the result of a mistake - or sometimes stupidity. If you have an attorney, most courts will notify your attorney - who can go to the judge and try to convince them to withdraw the warrant.
Often that is successful, but you better not miss another one. In addition to forfeiting your bond, the failure to appear for a court appearance can also be a separate charge. The prosecutor can choose to file a new charge for failure to appear. If the original offense is a misdemeanor, the new charge will be a felony. Most people who are ordered to appear in court are given a court date after being charged with a crime.
This is done to move to the next phase of the adjudication process after charges have been filed. In most cases, a person will show up at their court date to enter a plea, pay a fine or begin the process of going to trial. For example, John gets into a fight and is arrested and charged with assault. He pays his bail to be released from jail.
When he is released, the bail bondsman informs him that he must show up on his court date or his bail will be forfeit. In some cases, a person may be released from police custody on their own recognizance and will be given a court date without seeing a bail bondsman. Also, some people may be given a ticket or a citation and asked to show up for their court date, even if no arrest takes place. A person who does not show up for their court date can expect to face some penalties.
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