St. Louis Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
You can, but the chances are very good that you will be arrested instead. The arrest warrant that was issued by the judge is a court order that requires a police officer to arrest you on the spot. So even if you are being a good citizen and taking care of your debts to society, you will still be taken under custody.
When you receive a traffic citation from a police officer, the ticket will indicate a fair amount of information. Included on this document will be your court date. If you pay your fine before this date, or hire an attorney to take care of it for you, or you simply make an appearance in front of the judge in order to argue against it, you will be okay. But if you do not make an appearance on the court date, the judge will issue a bench warrant for your arrest.
Once this happens, you are at risk of getting thrown in jail wherever you go. So if you get pulled over again, they officer will run your license, see that there is a warrant for you, and then arrest you. Or if you decided to simply go take care of the ticket by showing up on some later date, you will get arrested. This is not really a risk you want to take.
So what do you do? Well, the best advice would be to seek the help of an experienced attorney. A good lawyer can get the warrant pulled, negotiate a deal with the prosecutor, and get the underlying ticket reduced to some lesser charge. This last piece of the puzzle is significant, because if you were originally pulled over for speeding, such an infraction can cause your automobile insurance to rise by having points put against your record. But if the attorney can get the ticket reduced (or even possibly dismissed), then you would not have to worry about that either.
The affordable St. Louis traffic ticket lawyers at The Bankruptcy Company have been taking care of people’s driving records for years. Our goal is to make sure that your record is clear, and that your ability to get to work, school, or church is unhampered by some arrest warrant.