What a great resource this site is, fantastic. I'm a second year law student and it's a lot of fun just to read through old threads.
Here's a bit of a head-scratcher my neighbor/friend is dealing with.
He's a permanent resident who has filed for naturalization, with no appointment date yet received. He filed a month or so ago. A few days ago, he realized that she had unintentionally misrepresented his criminal history of the filing, when he checked that he'd never been arrested or cited for anything. Turns out that he plum forgot about a federal park service citation for open container that he received in 2013. The trick here is that back then, he mailed in a payment using the self-addressed envelope provided, but it was returned to him, and he put it in a folder somewhere to follow up on but forgot about it. He never received any sort of notice to appear in district court (we're here in the Northern District of California). So now he's in a panic. He went onto the online or automated system that the government has for all federal citations (called violations) to check the status and there's no record of the ticket or his name. That could be good for him (the ticket never entered the system) or bad for him (because things stay in the system only so long and it'll make tracking down the disposition more difficult). He's just done his FBI fingerprinting and he figures that it'll come up on his record.
SO, for him, I have three questions that someone might perhaps help out with:
First, and not really immigration-related, how would he track down this ticket? I thought of trying to use the PACER system to check the docket back in 2013, to track down whatever happened there, does that seem like a good place to start?
Second, does a US District Court violation matter to the naturalization process? I've read conflicting accounts, and I'm certain someone on here knows exactly what's what. Will it prevent him from even getting to an interview?
Finally, related to naturalization, can he file some sort of amendment prior to the interview, or should he wait and raise the issue during the interview? I assume he'll need to bring evidence of how it was disposed.
Thanks a bunch, folks!

