Question about police procedure for my screenplay.

[harmonica]

For my script, the bad guy gets off on his crime, on a technicality. This happens at the hearing. After the hearing, I was thinking he would go back to the police station where he was being held, and process out his personal effects. However do the stations hold prisoners for hearings keep their personal effects, or would he have to go elsewhere to do that? Thanks.

[tcop733]

You have a lot of scripts.

[Nole795]

If you talking about personal effects unrelated to his prosecution (non-evidence), then the items would already have been returned to him or a person he designated. Normally that would happen during the booking process or shortly after.

[retdetsgt]

He would go to whatever facility was holding him. Here, it would be the county jail. The city police would only have possessions that were being held as evidence. The court would have to release it before we would return that.

[Citicop]

Here, you don't just walk out the front door of the court house. When ordered released, you get taken back to the county jail and get outprocessed first. You take all your belongings with you.

-Citicop.

[harmonica]

Hmm okay I will have to rewrite it. Thanks. So he can't walk out of the courthouse at all then? Not even if his belongings were processed out before? When they take him back to the the county jail, do they walk him out of the front of the courthouse, or the some way through the back?

[manahmanah]

Hmm okay I will have to rewrite it. Thanks. So he can't walk out of the courthouse at all then? Not even if his belongings were processed out before? When they take him back to the the county jail, do they walk him out of the front of the courthouse, or the some way through the back?

In a case like this, they are likely to helicoptor him in throught the top.

[kels]

Your defendant isnt going anywhere until the paperwork is done.
You can thank lawyers for that one.
You arnt free til all the nice paper work at the jail is signed sealed and delivered.

Hmm okay I will have to rewrite it. Thanks. So he can't walk out of the courthouse at all then? Not even if his belongings were processed out before? When they take him back to the the county jail, do they walk him out of the front of the courthouse, or the some way through the back?

[harmonica]

How long does it take to deliver?

[kels]

Lets see, the jail will want an order to release you from custody.
(takes the clerk about 5 minutes)
Then we have to wait till whoever you rode with sees the judge.
That could take 5 minutes to a couple of hours.
Then there is the 45 minute ride back to the next counties jail.
We dont have a jail.
Then you have to out process, maybe 10 minutes if they arnt busy.

[harmonica]

Okay for my story there has to be a scene where the guy is getting released from prison because of the legal technicality in his case. As he is being processed out the police commissioner gets a call and needs to run down to catch the bad guy before he goes free.

It would help if the bad guy was being held in the holding cells of the police station. In order to make it as accurate as possible, do I need to have an explanation as to why he is being held at the police station, and not in a county jail? Or is it common for criminals to be held in the cells of a police station for any number of reasons, while awaiting a hearing? And if he is being held in a station, can he be processed out there, or does he have to go somewhere else first? Thanks.