Find Out if You Have a Warrant in Pierce County, WA
If you have a warrant for traffic tickets, a criminal arrest warrant, or a bench warrant for a failure to appear, you could find yourself under arrest. Often, people can have warrants from old cases they might not even know about.
If you suspect you might have a warrant, call a lawyer right away. However, you can also check court records to see if your name is listed on any open cases, which should include whether a warrant was issued. That check can be run on the Pierce County Legal Information Network Exchange (LINX). If it isn’t there, there are other searches you can run, too.
Call the Law Offices of Smith & White at (253) 203-1645 to get help from our Tacoma, WA criminal defense lawyers.
What to Do if You Think You Have a Warrant
If you do think you have a warrant out for you, call a lawyer right away. The type of warrant can mean different things, and you could face a risk of imminent arrest. It is important to have a criminal defense lawyer on your side so we can figure out if we can get the warrant quashed or removed, or whether there is a court date you might need to attend.
Types of Warrants
There are all kinds of warrants, and searching online for “warrant search” websites can return a lot of rare things that don’t usually apply, like warrants from the Secretary of the Department of Corrections or tax warrants. In a criminal case, you are usually concerned with these types of warrants:
Criminal Arrest Warrant
After an investigation, police seek a criminal arrest warrant from a judge. They have to submit an affidavit explaining their probable cause to arrest you, and the judge issues an arrest warrant.
This warrant can be used to go find you and arrest you anywhere in public. If they also sought a search warrant for your home or another private place they think you are staying, they can also go in and arrest you there.
Traffic Warrant
If you have enough traffic or parking tickets, and you’ve been missing court dates, the court can issue an arrest warrant. This is like a bench warrant (discussed below) as far as the powers it gives the officer.
Bench Warrants
Judges issue warrants “from the bench” if you fail to appear in court for a scheduled court date. This would mean you had already been arrested or issued a summons for your case, and you missed the date.
This allows officers to arrest you if they come across you in public, such as during a traffic stop or another criminal investigation. They can take you into custody immediately and get you scheduled for a new court date.
How to Find an Open Warrant
If you have an open warrant, it should appear on the LINX portal for Pierce County (under the “Search” option). This is the government’s online portal for checking court filings, court dates, and the progress of a case.
You can run a search by putting in your name, opening the date range to capture any possible outstanding warrants, and choosing “criminal” for the case type, then hitting search.
That website also says that if your case is in district or municipal court, you can look on the Find My Court Date page as well. The other portal only shows Superior Court cases (i.e., the trial court level), but the Find My Court Date page might have lower-level courts as well.
You can also work with our Pierce County criminal defense lawyers, and we can look for warrants for you.
What to Do If You Find a Warrant
If you do have a warrant, call a lawyer right away. You need to understand what type of warrant it is and whether you might be arrested soon.
Criminal Arrest Warrants
If you have a criminal arrest warrant, we can discuss the option of turning yourself in peacefully and going through the booking process so that no one comes knocking on your door or arresting you at your workplace. From there, we can represent you during bail hearings and fight any charges against you.
Bench Warrants
If you have a bench warrant (or traffic warrant), we can contact the court that issued it and ask them to reschedule the case for a new court date and recall the open warrant. Some judges are willing to do this without you turning yourself in, which means we can just get a new court date and continue your defense where you left off.
If you do have to turn yourself in and seek a new bail hearing, the process is similar to what we would do for a criminal arrest warrant.
FAQs for Open Warrants in Pierce County
Can the Police Arrest Me at Home or Work?
If you have an arrest warrant, police can go looking for you to arrest you. They can arrest you in any public space, which can include arresting you at your job if you work in a public place (e.g., at a store or restaurant). If they have a search warrant or permission to go into a private place (like your home or office), they can go inside to get you.
Police do not usually go looking for you with a bench warrant, but rather wait to come across you in another encounter.
Can I Be Arrested at an Airport or Bus Stop with a Bench Warrant?
Police do not usually run warrant searches for everyone that comes through an airport, but it is always possible that TSA or other law enforcement agencies will do this and refer you to local authorities for arrest.
Can I Stop an Open Warrant?
Whether we can stop an open warrant depends on the type of warrant and the stage of your underlying case. Always consult with a lawyer.
What Happens if I Turn Myself In?
If you turn yourself in, you are booked and arraigned (if you haven’t already been), then bail is determined. If we arrange a date for you to turn yourself in, it can often avoid dangerous arrests and help show your cooperation, plus we can be there to argue that you should be released on bail.
Call Our Pierce County Criminal Defense Lawyers Today
Call the Law Offices of Smith & White at (253) 203-1645 to discuss your case with our University Place, WA criminal defense lawyers.