When there’s a warrant for your arrest, it means that the police can take you into custody at any time. This can be a scary and precarious situation. Often, the best course of action is one of forthright cooperation to prevent any further legal issues and to take care of the legal issues already before you.
If there is an arrest warrant for you, our lawyers might be able to help you turn yourself in to avoid any scary situations, such as a home raid. If you have a bench warrant for your arrest, then our lawyers can potentially contact the court that issued the warrant, have them recall the warrant, and schedule a new court date where you can appear and handle the case that is already in progress.
Call our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers at The Law Offices of Lloyd Long today at (215) 302-0171 for a free assessment of the charges against you.
What to Do if There is a Criminal Arrest Warrant Out for You in Pennsylvania
A criminal arrest warrant is the kind of warrant that judges issue to allow police officers to take a suspect into custody. For the judge to issue this warrant, the officers need to present the judge with an affidavit explaining their probable cause and the evidence they have to justify an arrest. These warrants usually come after an investigation has already taken place, permitting the police to come to your house or arrest you anywhere else they might find you out in the world.
Because of the way that these warrants come at the end of an investigation, you might already be aware of the investigation taking place. If you are the main suspect in a criminal investigation, you should contact our Bucks County criminal defense lawyers and begin working with us immediately so that we can field questions and check on any search warrants the police might try to execute in your case. This way, if an arrest warrant is issued, we might be contacted and be able to help you turn yourself in, avoiding any late-night knocks on the door or surprise home visits to arrest you.
If you are not already working with a lawyer and cooperating in the investigation, then it is unlikely you will know that there is a warrant out for you until they execute it and arrest you. In that case, you might not be able to take any steps to avoid arrest or reduce the impact of a sudden arrest.
What to Do if There is a Bench Warrant for You in Pennsylvania
A bench warrant is quite different from a normal arrest warrant. While an arrest warrant usually allows police to go to your house and arrest you, bench warrants usually see officers waiting until there is another police encounter with you, arresting you during that encounter. A bench warrant will be entered into a system, and any time an officer pulls you over or encounters you in the investigation of another crime, they will be authorized to take you back to jail and bring you to court to finish out your appearance before the judge that issued the bench warrant.
Bench warrants are most commonly issued when someone fails to appear in court for a criminal case they already have in progress. Judges should only issue a bench warrant if the defendant originally had good notice of the case and the court date, meaning that you might already know that this warrant exists.
This is good news because it means you can take steps now to avoid re-arrest and get the warrant taken care of. Our lawyers can contact the court that issued the warrant and seek a new court date where you might be able to show up and avoid being arrested. Judges are often willing to simply cancel the warrant, especially if there is a good reason you failed to appear in court and you are willing to voluntarily appear at the next court date.
Warrants Are Only the Beginning
If you are arrested on an arrest warrant, that is the start of your case. If you have a bench warrant after failure to appear, then there is already another case against you in progress. In both cases, this means that there is more to go in your case, including a potential trial and sentencing to take place after the warrant gets you brought before a judge.
Our attorneys can not only help you with the warrant, but we can also help with the upcoming steps in your criminal case, defending your rights and potentially helping you avoid conviction and serious penalties.
After an arrest, the court will set bail. Our lawyers can represent you in a bail hearing to try to convince the judge that you should be released on your own recognizance or have bail set at a very low amount or an amount that requires only a small portion of the bail to be paid up front. Judges are often reluctant to let you go on bail again if they already had to issue a bench warrant for a failure to appear once in this case, and it often takes additional assurance to guarantee your pre-trial freedom.
Since there is already a case started against you, you will also have to face those charges. Our lawyers can help put up a strong defense, analyze the prosecution’s evidence against you, challenge their methods for obtaining the evidence, guide you through any interrogations, and generally stand up for you. We can also potentially negotiate plea agreements with the defense that might see some of the most severe charges and penalties dropped in exchange for cooperation.
It is important to work with a lawyer as soon as you can in your case, especially if we can get involved and start defending your rights before an arrest warrant is even issued.
Call Our Pennsylvania Criminal Defense Lawyers Today
If you are facing arrest, call our Montgomery County criminal defense lawyers at The Law Offices of Lloyd Long at (215) 302-0171.