Legal Question in Criminal Law in North Carolina
Failure to Appear
I filed a complaint about assault on a female, and assumed later if I didn't show up, the case would be dropped. I'm the claimant. I found out they issued a failure to appear warrant. A lawyer in NC said it would be a $100 fine and $100 for his services, No problem, but I am having a background check done for my job and needed to know if this would show up on it. Is this a state issue? Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Failure to Appear - Background investigations
From what you wrote, it sounds like you have not been convicted, only charged? And, that there is a NC arrest warrant for you, on that charge? Do the authorities in NC know your current address, but have chosen not to spend the money to have you arrested and extradited back to NC? If these assumptions are correct, then you should have no criminal conviction record (for this), but could have various public records of having a pending criminal charge or allegation against you, and an arrest warrant in NC.
Employers can have background investigations done on potential employees of varying degrees of thoroughness and cost. The cheapest and easiest background check is of the FBI's national "NCIC" system. As I recall, all felony charges and some misdemeanors (such as domestic assault) are put on the NCIC system. In Minnesota, the NCIC system is administered by the MN Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in St Paul. You could go there to check your NCIC record, for free on their public terminals. I don't know if the NCIC system will show arrest warrants for misdemeanors not otherwise listed. The nice folks at the BCA could answer that, or just look and see.
There are other, more in depth background investigations employers can do -- for example, doing a county courthouse record check for every county lived in for the past ten years, etc.