How Will Failure to Appear Affect You if You Live Out-of-State

**It_wasall_fornothing** · 07-31-2012, 07:39 PM

I have a failure to appear, failure to pay for a citation I got for Possession of Alcohol in a Vehicle of a person under 21 I got in October in California. I currently live in Utah and am about to move to Massachusetts. Back originally I tried to contact the District Attorney's office and the court I was suppose to go to, to see what I could from out of state. They couldn't find my citation information or anything so they couldn't help. I kind of figured maybe the cop had a busy ass night on Halloween and cut me a break or something since nobody could tell me about what was going on. Well last week I was in California for job stuff, was going to take a job there and was trying to get a CA drivers license so I could get a sales license. However at the DMV I get this FTA FTP notice. Saying my driving privileges are suspended and I need to go take care of this. I came back to Utah and was going to look into what I needed to do to take care of this. I got a better job offer in Massachusetts and am going to take it. I would like to take care of this still, but how does this affect me going forward if I didn't? Also can I take care of this without going to CA? The violation codes are 23224A VC which is the Possession of Alcohol underage and 405095 VC which is the failure to appear. I wasn't trying to avoid this court hearing, in fact the exact opposite, but nobody could help me, I think California's legal system is a shit show but we won't get into that. What would happen if I didn't take care of this? And can I take care of this without being in the state? Thanks for your time and answers.

**Mr. Knowitall** · 08-02-2012, 12:46 PM

As you've noted, your failure to appear in court has resulted in the suspension of your license. It's reasonable to also expect that the court issued an arrest warrant.

You can retain a lawyer in the county in which you failed to appear to try to negotiate a plea bargain for you, and see if he can work out a deal that allows you to avoid appearing in court, but I'm expecting they're going to want to see your face.