Legal Question in Family Law in Arkansas
Warrant
I was recently arrested after a traffic stop for having an outstanding warrant in Arkansas. It was tied to a complaint of failure to pay child support. The document had my current address(reside for 5+ years) and current place of employment(4 years) and was filed January 2003. I was caught by surprise about the warrant and equally surprised about the reason. On top of this I was labelled fugitive from justice. How is this possible?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Warrant
This is a problem. You will have a similar problem every time you are stopped until the warrant is dealt with.
On the plus side, you were not incarcerated and sent to Arkansas in handcuffs. They actually can do that!
Clearly, you were not properly 'served' or given notice of the events in Arkansas. The best way to handle this is to find a lawyer in Arkansas to make a motion to have the claim dismissed because you have never been given notice.
while i can do all of that from here, we would need a copy of the 'file' for the motion. you can get a copy from the court that issued the warrant by writing to them. I can assist you with this as well.
challenging service and notice is a standard legal issue in 10% of all cases and the court will take this issue very seriously. You may not be sued in the United States without proper and legal notice.
You are welcome to a consultation for no fee at my offices at 42 west 44th street, NY,NY. Please call for an appointment first (646) 591-5786.
Re: Warrant
First of all, do you owe the back child support? The Office of Child Support Enforcement keeps the records of this in AR. If you do owe back child support, they can issue a warrant for you.
It sounds like you did not receive proper notice of the warrant. This would possibly make it invalid. You can challenge the warrant on these grounds in AR court. If you don't do anything the warrant will continue to be outstanding for you and it will appear anytime you are stopped. You could possibly even be incarcerated for this, if the officers so chose.
Another thing you may be able to do is take care of the back child support that you may owe. Then, it is possible to also get the charges dropped and the warrant off your record. That is, with everyone's permission.
You might want to contact an attorney to help clear up this matter.