Police force disqualification?

[rnallen]

I am currently applying to my local police force, and I am concerned that an appearance in court might take me out of consideration. A little under a year ago, I was passing through a neighboring town and recieved a warning for a minor speeding violation. I didn't have my insurance on me at the time, and was issued a ticket, along with a verbal warning, telling me to bring my insurance to court and the violation would be dropped. Well, since I don't usually pass through this town that often, I forgot to appear in court on the specified date. The courts issued a warrant for my arrest and I was picked up and put in jail. My lawyer spoke with the courts and all violations and wrong doings were supposedly dropped. What should I do?

[Recondo]

Since no one else will jump in..I will..lol, A large part of being a LEO from what I can tell thus far, is common sense, another part is being able to put 2 & 2 together on your own..I say that, because you do not sound too clear or certain if the charges & all were dropped from this issue..?? ( I would think if you were arrested, there is a permanent record of it), so IMH you should research this with the court / LEA that this all took place in & be sure its all taken care of Before you venture in to apply. I maybe wrong, but I think the time frame of only about a year ago, probably is not "long ago enough" to demonstrate you have kept your nose out of trouble & taken care of any legal issues you have. I am not saying Not to try, ...no one is perfect & we all have had our issues, myself for sure..and some depts are much less sticky on some issues then others.. but you need to do a certain amount of homework yourself & get some facts, because eitherway, it will come up during the background process & you will need to explain this matter in detail & factually. Best of Luck to you!
Recondo

[Scotty22]

Here's another question along the same lines...what if you got a speeding ticket, sent in your $92 dollars rather than showing up for court in a small town and 2 - 3 years later look back at your bank statements and notice no one has ever cashed your check. There is also no warrents out for your arrest for failure to appear in court in the state. We've got a friend who works for a DA and looked some stuff up for us.

Interesting, but that's kind of the pickle that my friend is in. He is thinking about applying for LEO along with myself, what should he do?

[Recondo]

At best case, the paperwork on the ticket got lost or filed wrong or something that basically made it disappear before it ever made it on your friends record, or they logged your payment & processed it accordingly, but the clerk/bank dropped the ball in processing the check (more probable) and the payment was otherwise lost after it hit the court systems records. My guess, this is a bank problem. My advice is go get a 5yr DMV printout, this will list all past violations, dates given & cleared, ect. If this violation is not among those listings, forget about it, it was a non-event. If it is listed, but the check never processed, thats not your problem, its probably far too late for anyone to come back to you now & your friend could prove, via the bank statement that payment was made at some point. If on the otherhand, things went south and the court has this violation still open & probably tacked on a few extra goodies for failure to appear or pay, your friend should get in a take care of it for sure! Good Luck. Recondo

[mcsap]

Getting locked up for failing to appear for a traffic ticket is NOT a criminal arrest. At least in PA it isn't. It is for failure to appear/ contempt of court. Not a good thing to have but it certainly is different than a criminal arrest.

[brownman40]

I believe that's also the case in TX

[P01IC3M4N]

we used to have a guy who had been arrested for outstanding traffic tickets. he's since been hired by a bigger, higher paying agency.