Help

[wolves94]

I posted this about a week ago, I now know what happened. Please read and help me!!

Court has no records

I was cited in the middle of December of 2011. My initial appearance in court was Jan 3rd. I filed a motion to move my court date to late January of 2012. I have yet to hear from the court. I since have gone to the court to be fingerprinted, yet they have no information on my court date. I have given the court clerks the complaint number on the citation and nothing comes up in their system. All I hear from them is that the officer has yet to file the report. It has been over a month, is this common? What other explanations can there be?

Turns out the report was never filed, somehow the paperwork was lost. The officer blames the courts for losing the paperwork, the courts blame the officer for not turning in the report. After a month and a half, the officer will resubmit the paperwork to the courts.

Was my due process violated? I already had a court date, it came and went. The common procedure of filing the paperwork was interrupted. My job is one the line, not because of the charges but because I have been placed on administrative leave until I this matter is resolved. Yet I have been told that if this issue can't be resolved in a timely manner, I will lose my job. What can I do? Any suggestions?

I have been in contact with the courts and the city prosecutor's office to resolve this issue over the last two weeks but they couldn't help me because they have no paperwork. The officer that issued the citation did not respond to my voicemails, her supervisor did not respond to my voicemail. Their supervisor, a Lt, has yet to respond to my voicemail. I eventually went down to the station and finally talked to someone and told that the paperwork was lost and that they will refile the charges.

[ChesCopPodz]

Well, if they are going to re-file the charges, then you'll get a new court date when the new charges are filed.

And no, I seriously doubt the high courts will say your due process was "violated" because you had to wait a few weeks for a new court date. When I file charges, the paperwork has to go from me, to my sgt, then to our records section, then to the court, then a worker in the mail room takes it to the DA's office in the court house. Plenty of different stops and it's happened before where paperwork gets sent to one place where it should go to another.

[CPL1897]

I would not consider it common, however these things do happen on occasion as with any process that involves paperwork...(Banking,College,etc.) You also refer to it as "being cited" but "fingerprinted" and "court date" and "job on the line" so I can assume this is not a citation but an actual criminal charge. "Due Process" that you are referring to is in relation to a "fair and speedy trial etc" and would not apply to lost paperwork unless you could prove "the paperwork was intentionally lost to prevent a speedy trial" if you get my drift.....

[cntryboy0531]

All I can say is that you would need to contact an attorney to examine your due process rights, and if they were violated in this case.

Each area is different, but in our court circuit some cases have been thrown out for occasional screwups such as this. For speedy trial issues mainly. You should consult an attorney.

[Gutwrench]

If I was on admin leave with my job on the line I don't think I'd be posting here. Why haven't you tried the obvious move of contacting a lawyer?