Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

You now have an arrest warrant and new criminal charges. The deal you had 'is no more'.

To handle a warrant, you must turn yourself in to the issuing court, with or without an attorney. On felony charges, the defendant must be personally present at every court hearing and appearance. On misdemeanors and infractions, an attorney can appear in court without the defendant being present � which is safer and avoids immediately being taken into custody. You�ll try to negotiate a recall of the warrant[s] and bail reduction or OR release. You�ll try to negotiate a plea bargain on any �Failure to Appear� charge or probation violation that caused the warrant. You�ll try to re-negotiate a new plea bargain on the outstanding charge that caused the warrant. Turning yourself in voluntarily will result in a better outcome than being brought in chains to court after arrest on the warrant. You now face potential jail and fines, so handle it right. Effective plea-bargaining, using whatever legal defenses, facts and sympathies there may be, could possibly keep you out of jail/prison, or at least dramatically reduce it. Unless you're competent to effectively represent yourself in court against a professional prosecutor trying to put you in jail, most people hire an attorney who can. If serious about hiring counsel to help in this, feel free to contact me.

You will have a new charge of a failure to appear for custody from the earlier case, so that will have penalties in addition to the existing sentence.