Signatory Warrant Made Easy

Signatory warrant

hey everyone I'm Howard I'm one of the attorneys here at the attorneys for freedom law firm lately we've been getting a lot of questions about arrest warrants I'm here today to answer some of those questions so the first thing we have to talk about is what is an arrest warrant well here it is it's a document I'm going to leave this up here for you okay the United States Constitution under the Fourth Amendment as well as article 2 section 8 of the Arizona Constitution protects you and everybody else from unreasonable seizures the search warrant protects you from those it's a safeguard now in order to get a warrant a police officer or a law enforcement officer has to do a couple things first the officer has to establish that there is probable cause to believe that you or someone else committed a or several crimes the second thing that officer has to do is go before a judge and swear under penalty of perjury that they can articulate a set of facts to establish that you have they have probable cause to arrest that person so let's talk about what's contained in the document the arrest warrant has to contain many things the first thing as you can see is an order by the court it commands a law enforcement officer to arrest the person named and bring them back to the court in which the judge that issued the warrants it's to be valid the warrant has to contain a handful of things I'm going to touch on those real quick for you the first is as I said the name of the person to be arrested probably the most important thing right we don't want police officers walking around the piece of papers and then go arrest anybody so it must contain the person's name the second is the reason or reasons for the arrest some examples of those let's say a person fails to appear in court well judges don't like when you don't show up to court they issue a bench warrant grand jury can indict a person as I said before the police officer goes before the court and makes a statement a sworn statement that he believes or she believes they have enough evidence against you to say that there is at least probable cause to believe that the person committed a crime finally another example is probation violations the next thing that has to be listed in order to make the arrest warrant valid is the offense date when the officer or the judge believes that you committed an offense it also has to list the statute or statutes that they believe you violated and some language explaining how you violated that statute every statute in the Arizona Revised Statutes code carries with it elements of a crime the officer has to establish some of those elements at least enough to show that there is probable cause for each element to say that you should be brought before the court also it has to list what type of crime it is is it a misdemeanor or a felony also as you can see there's a section here about bond when a judge issues an arrest warrant the judge will indicate how much bond they believe is appropriate now I stress to you that this is what the bond should be it is not necessarily what it will be you are entitled to a hearing before a judge not necessarily the judge that issued the arrest warrant but a judge within 24 hours of your arrest it's called an initial appearance at that initial appearance a judge has to decide what an appropriate bond is for you that is determined by mainly two factors are you a threat to yourself or others and are you a flight risk now a lot of times when we go to these hearings and we advocate for our clients we're able to articulate to the judge that an own recognizance release is most appropriate own recognizance simply means judge I promise to appear I'm not going to flee I'm not going to harm anyone nobody needs to monitor me and you don't need me to give you money to assure that I'm gonna come to court it's essentially a promise to appear next as you can see down here whether fingerprints exist or need to be taken also the arrest warrant has to be signed by the judge who issued it or by one of the judges deputy clerks next you can see in this section down below the person's identifier the sex race date of birth height weight eye color hair color the address driver's license number and the state did issue the driver's license and sometimes if they choose to put it in with the last four of the person's social security number now once the arrest warrant has been executed meaning it has been signed police officers are aware of it and they go out and execute the warrant by arresting the person then they fill out this section down here and that section is what is the warrant number if you were arrested out of state did you have to be extradited the arresting agency meaning what police department is the officer who arrested you from any citation number that you may have been arrested under as well as a police report number that may be applicable and the officer has to certify as you can see here by signing and dating when that warrant was executed and then finally at the very bottom as you can see did the officer bring you before for this warrant certainly a lot of information if this is something that you've dealt with or that you're concerned about give us a call we're always here to help we're happy to speak with you we look forward to hearing from you