In 1987, our client was charged with a felony violation of Health and Safety Code section 11350(a), “Possession of a Controlled Substance” offense. Our client appeared at his initial arraignment but failed to appear at a later court appearance and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
Our client recently hired our office to represent him on several of his criminal matters and, after reviewing his Department of Justice California Criminal History,” we discovered the outstanding warrant for this case. We then set the matter for a bench warrant recall hearing.
Our client now resides in Florida and would be extremely inconvenienced if required to be present in court for this bench warrant recall. Our office was able to appear on his behalf, request the matter be reduced to a misdemeanor pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.18, “Proposition 47," which now statutorily enumerates this offense as a misdemeanor as opposed to a felony, and we were able to recall the bench warrant. For misdemeanor matters, Penal Code section 977(a) provides an attorney authority to appear on a defendant’s behalf without the personal appearance of the defendant in court.
At the bench warrant hearing, after providing the court with our client’s lack of criminal history since 1990 and the fact that the case was over thirty-three (33) years old, the case was completely dismissed pursuant to Penal Code section 1385, “In the Interests of Justice.”
Given that the case was completely dismissed without a conviction, our client is now eligible to seal his record of arrest pursuant to Penal Code section 851.91, which would allow him to effectively state that this arrest and case did not occur!
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