04.02.07
Please Show Up for Court. Please.
Please - if you are ever supposed to appear in court, just go. On time. Show the hell up. Because no matter how scared you may be of what is going to happen, it will only get worse if you don’t show up. There is absolutely nothing I hate more than defaults. If I am on arraignment duty and I see that someone’s record has defaults on it, I know that my bail argument will be even more futile than usual. If I have a good deal worked out for my client and I don’t see him…don’t see him…don’t see him, I know that he will be defaulted, the deal will go out the window, and he will likely get picked up on an arrest warrant and face an uphill battle in custody rather than out of it.
I had a case scheduled for discovery compliance today. My client is 18-years-old with absolutely nothing else on his record, not even a juvenile record. I spent several precious morning moments talking to the prosecutor about what was going on in the case and felt confident that I could either get the case resolved incredibly favorably for this client, or put it on for trial without feeling like I was going to embarrass myself. But he never showed up. I spent the next 2.5 hours searching the faces in the audience, obsessively checking the hallways, constantly calling my office to check messages, and even calling him on my (*67 protected) personal cell phone. All to no avail. He wasn’t coming. And when the case was called, I had to say that I had not yet seen my client. The DA asked for a default warrant and the judge granted it. So now this 18-year-old could be in his living room tonight and the cops can come bust him and he will be taken into custody for the first time in his life. Or maybe he will be driving a little too fast next week and he will be arrested once the cops realize his license has been suspended because of a default warrant. Or maybe there will be a rash of crime and the police will be too busy to worry about default warrants, in which case, he may slip through the cracks for another month. But he won’t ever just escape it and he’ll face a much harsher reality once it catches up with him.
Our office has been getting a crush of calls lately from social workers and legal aid lawyers around the country, begging for us to please help some destitute and disabled person in California or Oregon or Kansas address a 20-year-old warrant in our county. Why, when these people thought that they had safely fled that charge of receiving stolen property or driving an uninsured motor vehicle so many years ago, are they suddenly desperate to take care of them now? Because now they need Social Security disability payments to live. And Social Security will not dole out benefits to anyone with an open warrant anywhere. They literally have an entire department dedicated to sussing these warrants out just to avoid giving them a couple hundred bucks a month. In 1990, this sort of interconnectedness did not exist between states or the feds or even counties within one state. But technology can be a bitch and no judge where I practice is going to have one iota of sympathy for a sob story unless you show your damn face in court. These people defaulted just like my 18-year-old client did today. Only now, they literally may die because of it.
So please. Go to court.
