What happens if you miss a court date in Washington
Most likely a bench warrant, and a forfeiture that costs you whether you posted cash yourself or used a bondsman. What usually does not happen — despite what people assume — is a new criminal charge.
If you missed a court date, the thing you want to know first is whether you are now in more trouble than you were yesterday. Usually the answer is: some, and less than you think.
Two things follow fairly reliably, one follows only in narrow circumstances, and one of them can be undone by a motion you can get started this week.
What follows a missed date
| What | How likely |
|---|---|
| A bench warrant | Expect it. The rule says the court may, not must, but in practice it issues |
| Forfeiture of bail or recognizance | Follows the same rule, and the same may |
| A new charge of bail jumping | Only in narrow circumstances — see below |
| A license suspension | Only on a traffic matter, and only if the court reports it |
The warrant, and the money
Where someone released on their own recognizance or on bail does not appear, the court may order the recognizance or the money deposited forfeited, and may direct the clerk to issue a bench warrant. That is the wording in the superior court rule and in the rule for district and municipal courts, and in both the word is may — it is not automatic.
If you posted cash with the court, that is the money that goes. If a bail bond company posted for you, the forfeiture takes the form of a judgment entered against you and the surety together, which is a different mechanism and worth asking them about early.
Nothing here resolves on its own. In practice, expect the warrant, and expect that it will not lapse quietly.
Is missing a hearing a new crime?
This is the one people are actually frightened of, and it is narrower than the internet suggests.
Failing to appear can be charged as a separate crime, bail jumping. But the statute requires that you received written notice of the requirement to appear, and since June 2020 it reaches failing to appear for trial — plus, for someone held for, charged with or convicted of a violent or sex offense, failing to appear or surrender to serve a sentence, with further conditions on top.
Missing an ordinary pretrial hearing is generally not a new charge.
And if the notice went to an address you had already left, that is not an excuse to be sheepish about. It goes to whether the statute reaches you at all.
Undoing the warrant
The thing that can be undone is the warrant, and the statute itself points at how. One of its conditions turns on whether the person moved to quash the warrant within thirty days of it being issued.
That is the shape of the remedy whether or not any new charge is in play: you or a lawyer ask the court to quash the warrant and put the case back on a calendar. It is routine work.
It is far easier in the first week than in the third year. The two things that make this worse are time, and being picked up on the warrant rather than walking in on it.
If it was a traffic matter
There is a separate consequence running on its own track. The Department of Licensing suspends driving privileges when a court reports a failure to respond or appear on a moving violation.
But that suspension does not take effect if, before its effective date, the department receives a certificate from the court showing the case has been adjudicated. Move quickly enough and the suspension never starts.
A missed date on a non-traffic criminal case does not carry this at all.
How long it stays on your record
The failure to appear also lands on the driving record, and it stays until it is resolved or for ten years from the date the court notified the department, whichever comes first.
Those ten years are not a way out — the court can resubmit an unresolved failure to appear after the period runs. Resolving it is what clears it, and once resolved, what remains is the original ticket.
Is there a defense if you could not help it?
There is one written into the statute, and it has three parts. All three, not just the first:
- Uncontrollable circumstances prevented you appearing
- You did not contribute to them by negligently disregarding the requirement
- You appeared as soon as those circumstances ended
That is narrower than having had a good reason, which is why the honest version of what happened is more useful to a lawyer than the tidy one.
If this has already happened to you, the single useful thing today is to find out what the court file actually says.