BENCH WARRANTS
A bench warrant is a warrant issued by a judge which directs police to arrest someone in order to address the reason for the warrant, which most often is for failure to appear for a scheduled court appearance. Other reasons that a bench warrant may be issued include: failure to pay child support, failure to pay a court fine, failure to abide by your provisions for probation, and disobeying a court order.
When you are arrested on a bench warrant, you can be held in jail until you go before the judge who issued the warrant. If you have a bench warrant, you can be taken into custody the next time you have any interaction with police, such as a traffic violation. However, police do not typically go actively searching for people with bench warrants. Once arrested, you will need to post new bail and be assigned a new court date.
If you suspect there may be a bench warrant issue for you, you do not have to wait to be arrested to get the warrant lifted. You can check sheriff's online databases in the parish where you suspect you may have a bench warrant.
RECALLING A WARRANT
In order to have a bench warrant recalled, the best thing to do is to call the court that issued the warrant and attempt to make arrangements to settle the issue. However, you or your attorney may have to appear before the judge who issued it. There, your attorney will make the case as to why you failed to comply with a court order. In any case, you will be required to perform the action that you previously failed to perform.
