Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Warrants

I found a listing on www.peoplefinders.com that links myself, my husband, his younger brother and his wife to my spouse's older brother. The address is an address in La Puente where none of us live but is the city where 3 of the 5 listed people owned a house with one additional family member whose name is not listed with ours on that website listing. I think that it may be a warrant of some kind or something similar. The person whoe name we are listed with wants us arrested in the worst way because we uncovered crimes that he committed and is ashamed of. he wants us to shut up and since we did not keep the family ''code of silence'' which he thought we would he is furious and embarrassed and has been caught by the feds for his illegal activities. He is a retired juvenile probation officer who knows about court operations and seems to get special treatment by the sheriffs in his area. My spouse and I live in FL and have made a number of costly trips to CA to defend family members against him. How would we find out if there is a warrant of any kind waiting for us to get caught (with his help) when we are in CA? I can't just stay away from the state because my brother and my husband's brother both live there.


Asked on 8/12/06, 5:13 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Edward Hoffman Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman

Re: Warrants

Information about warrants is not publicly available, nor should it be.

I don't understand why you think there is a warrant out for any of you. The database links you and your relatives to the house because three of you used to live there. The data also shows connections between those three and the other two, which led someone to incorrectly connect them to the address. Such things happen all the time, which is one reason these databases are not always reliable.

There is no way to find out if a warrant has been issued for you or your relatives. You can't get this information, and neither can the people who run the database you checked. Thus, even if there *are* warrants out for you, that fact has nothing to do with what the database says.

If the contents of pending arrest warrants were public information, suspects would often know ahead of time that the police were coming for them and would flee or go into hiding. This would increase the time, effort and expense involved in capturing them and would often give them opportunities to commit more crimes and/or to escape entirely. Making the information available would provide no public benefit which could even come close to offsetting these serious costs.

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Answered on 8/12/06, 5:39 pm
Quincy Hoang Quincy Hoang, Attorney

Re: Warrants

Although I agree completely with Mr. Hoffman's reply to your questions, I would like to add that certain types of warrants (i.e. bench warrants & arrest warrants) may be found at the sheriff's office and / or at the County Superior Court. Warrants are generally county-wide.

So you can check with the county court and / or sheriff's office which you will be visiting and ask them if there are any outstanding warrants. The purpose for making some warrants public is to give an individual a chance to turn themselves in, thereby reducing the administrative costs in executing such a warrant.

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Answered on 8/12/06, 7:35 pm


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