Whether you thought you didn’t have to attend court (see our previous post) or forgot, not showing up on your court date for speeding tickets and other traffic violations will lead to problems.
For most traffic cases, your appearance in court can be “waived” once you hire counsel. You permit your attorney to resolve the matter for you, and you are free to stay home or go to work while we take care of it.
However, if you’ve not hired an attorney yet, you need to go.
Failing to appear in court for speeding tickets:
If you miss your court date and don’t pay the ticket, a couple of things might happen:
- Your case may be “Called and Failed”. This is sort of like being late for school and missing roll call. Nothing happens immediately, but if you do not come to court and have your case re-calendared within 20 days a “Called and Failed” will become a “Failure to Appear” (see below).
- You may receive a “Failure to Appear”. This is the process by which the trial court marks you absent and notifies the Division of Motor Vehicles. This is more like being late for school and getting sent to the principal’s office. Once the court notifies DMV of the delinquency, your license will be suspended until the ticket is resolved. To correct a Failure to Appear, you’ll have to contact the District Attorney and have your case rescheduled. You’ll also have an extra fine tacked onto your court costs. Once your ticket is fully resolved in court, the DMV suspension will be lifted.
- The court may issue an “Order for Arrest” (“OFA”). This is self-explanatory. If your case is scheduled before a judge in court, and you fail to appear, the judge has discretion to issue an OFA. In our “late for school” example, this is where you get expelled. If an OFA is issued, then a bond will be set that you’ll have to make in order to keep from going to jail pending your new court date.
Whether an OFA will be issued is up to the judge, and usually depends on the severity of the crime and your history. Judges usually do not issue OFA’s for routine traffic offenses, such as speeding or running a stop sign.
Issuing an FTA (see above) and temporarily suspending your license is usually enough to get your attention. But if you are charged with something like reckless driving or driving on a revoked license, your odds of getting an OFA go way up.
If you have a history of missing court, that also raises the odds. And then, some judges simply take offense at folks missing court and issue an OFA as an “attention getter” to make you appear and deal with your case. We often appear in front of one judge who is notorious for this practice.
What to do if you receive an FTA or Order for Arrest:
If you’re hit with either an FTA or an OFA for missing court, you’ll need the help of an attorney.
If you’ve received an FTA, you’ll need to have your case rescheduled and resolved to get your license out of temporary suspension. We can go back to the court for you and get your case put back on the docket. We can occasionally persuade the court to strike your FTA as well, if the DA consents and the circumstances allow it. Otherwise, you will owe an extra fine at the end of the day for missing court.
If you’re received an OFA, then you should definitely hire counsel. We will approach the court and ask for your OFA to be stricken and case reset on the assurance that you will show up next time. In most cases, judges are willing to set aside an OFA once you have an attorney and you promise to show up. If, for some reason, a judge will not strike your OFA, then you’ll have to turn yourself in and post a bond to get a new court date and resolve your matter.
At the end of the day, if an OFA was issued for you, then you also have an FTA and the associated extra court fines. Again, the FTA can sometimes be stricken with the district attorney’s consent.
Waivable Offenses
Most speeding tickets and other minor traffic violations are waivable offenses. These are offenses where you can waive your right to appear in court, and simply pay or send an attorney to court on your behalf.
If you want to challenge the ticket, waivable offenses allow you to have a traffic attorney appear on your behalf. This is something we do for the majority of our traffic ticket clients.
However, more serious offenses like reckless driving and driving while license revoked are not a waivable, meaning that you must appear in court with your attorney.
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If you’ve missed a court date or have one coming up soon, give us a call today! The McElwee Law Firm puts decades of experience in your corner.
Will McElwee has been a traffic attorney for over 25 years, and has established a solid track record helping folks from Boone and Wilkesboro to Winston Salem address traffic tickets. His family has a long and fruitful history in the area: the McElwee Law Firm began in 1932. Will’s grandfather, William H. McElwee, Jr., was a former president of the North Carolina Bar and sat on North Carolina’s Board of Law Examiners for many years.
As a “Double Deac,” Will attended Wake Forest University for both undergraduate and law school. He is a certified Superior Court and Family Financial Mediator and is also certified in the field of collaborative law.
