News: FEB 13, 2012
In most Bay Area counties, if you or your lawyer show up to court for your first DUI court date (arraignment), there are a number of things that can happen. Usually a not guilty plea is entered and the lawyer fights the case. However, sometimes the District Attorney’s office has not filed the charges by your arraignment date and there will eventually be a new Court date. That is what happens in most Bay Area Counties. The District Attorney or the Court will send you a letter with a new court date, or the Court itself might assign you a new arraignment date.
However, this is not what happens in San Francisco. Until recently, if your case was not ready to be filed at your arraignment date, you would not get a courtesy notice. Instead, once the DA filed the complaint post arraignment date, typically a $10,000.00 DA arrest warrant would issue and you would need to surrender to a police station to get the warrant recalled and your case started. Once surrendering, you would need to post bail (10% of the $10,000.00) through a bail bondsman, or wait in jail for potentially days until they brought you to court. Learn more about how a San Francisco DUI lawyer can help.
Why San Francisco did not send out courtesy notices with new court dates is unknown and outrageous. Currently in some cases that they are filing after the arraignment date, a letter will be sent from the police requesting you to call and come in to sign a new promise to appear in court. But for many older cases with DUI arrest warrants, the misdemeanor unit at the DA’s office and the San Francisco Superior Court Clerk’s office are telling you to surrender to the police and either post bail or wait in jail until they take you to court.
The good news is if you are reading this blog post, you now have another way to avoid jail and bail. If you have an older DUI Arrest Warrant in San Francisco, you should be able to do the following for a quick walk through booking and avoid the agony of bail and jail pre arraignment: Go to the 4th floor at 850 Bryant Street and head down the North Hall and through the glass doors. To the right side of the hall you will find the Central Warrants Bureau. Go to window #4, where you will find officer Jeff Dong. He is usually there Monday through Friday from 8-5. In most of these cases Officer Dong can do a walk through booking and you will be out of the building in no time. He will usually let you pick whatever Court date works best for you.
