Is There a Warrant for your Arrest in Pennsylvania?

New Technologies Make it More Likely to Catch up With You

Protect Yourself by Taking Action Now!

Did you skip a court date and fail to appear in court in PA? If so you will be charged with Failure to Appear (FTA), and a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest.

Whether you live out of state, and couldn’t make it to court, just panicked, or any other reason for skipping your court date, a warrant can get you arrested anytime, anywhere. Even a warrant that is years or decades old can come back to haunt you. Unfortunately, this is increasingly common as old data files are put online.

But we can work to reduce and eliminate many of the risks if we address the problem right away, before you are stopped by the police and arrested. if you are arrested, your leverage is substantially reduced. You are much better off trying to cooperate and deal with the problem proactively. In many cases, old charges can be dismissed or otherwise cleared up with little or no significant penalty.

If you are worried about a warrant for your arrest for failing to appear in court, please call us now at (888) 412-3298 or contact us for your free consultation. We’ll tell you exactly how we can work with the courts to help you.

How Likely Are they to Find Me?

The police are probably not actively looking for you, if you have a warrant for a relatively minor charge. However, there are many ways to get picked up.

  • Your name is in a statewide Pennsylvania database called the Judicial Network system (JNET). This data is shared between law enforcement agencies nationwide, so it could appear anywhere.
  • Any time the police run you name, it will be flagged as an outstanding warrant. If you are stopped and questioned by the police for any reason, such as a broken tail light or speeding, you will be arrested. This could happen anywhere in the country, not just Pennsylvania.
  • An increasing number of police cruisers have license plate scanning technology. (See this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.)  Sitting by the side of the road or in traffic, these video cameras can scan thousands of cars per hour, and flag any license plates that are driving by people with outstanding warrants, or other issues. So you can be arrested just by driving down the road legally.
  • If you travel into the country, you could be stopped during a check of your passport and citizenship.

Free Legal Consultation on any Pennsylvania Arrest Warrant

If you haven’t been arrested, but are worried about an outstanding warrant issued by a Pennsylvania judge, please call us before anything happens. We can often work to get the warrant resolved and removed behind the scenes, taking away significant risk of serious penalties.

Of course, we can help you if you’ve already been arrested, too. In fact, you definitely need a lawyer to defend you. But the case becomes trickier, and we may have to argue with the judge about some extenuating circumstances to try to defend your case.

More references:

Search Pennsylvania Outstanding Warrants, via Montgomery County Sheriff’s Dept.

Pennsylvania law on Failure to appear.

Please contact the attorneys of Pennsylvania-Criminal-Defense.com to help you with any failure to appear / outstanding warrant in Pennsylvania.

We have decades of experience in criminal courts across Pennsylvania, helping clients fight nearly every type of criminal charge from serious felonies to misdemeanors and minor traffic charges.

Please call us now for a free criminal defense consultation on any criminal charge in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Call (888) 412-3298.