The police occasionally give
suspects desk appearance tickets when
they are arrested for misdemeanors in New York City, including Queens,
Manhattan, Brooklyn, instead of "putting them through the system."
That means that if you get a
Desk Appearance Ticket in Queens, for example, the Desk Appearance Ticket
will tell you when to come to court for your arraignment instead of you
being held in jail until a judge hears your case and
decides bail. Getting a desk appearance ticket in New York City
will save you about 24 hours of misery waiting to see a judge.
A person is eligible for a
Desk Appearance Ticket in New York when he is arrested for a misdemeanor
or class E felony. As a practical matter, the police virtually
never give a person a desk appearance ticket in New York City for an E
felony. I once had an argument with a New York City Detective to
whom I was surrendering a client on an E felony, because the Detective
refused even to believe that New York permitted Desk Appearance
Tickets for E felonies. It is permitted, but the police choose to
not offer desk appearance tickets for E felonies with any frequency.
Desk appearance tickets in
New York City are harder to come by than they used to be. Years
ago, a person arrested for the first time for a misdemeanor was quite
likely to get a desk appearance ticket. These days, however, New
York City Police Department policies make qualifying for a desk
appearance ticket extremely difficult. Entire categories of cases
are virtually excluded from consideration for desk appearance tickets.
For example, domestic
violence cases or allegations of violations of orders of protection are
usually excluded from consideration for desk appearance tickets in New
York City.
Getting a
desk appearance ticket means that you have been arrested. You have just been given the courtesy of appearing on
your own for your arraignment as opposed to waiting in jail for 24 hours
to see the judge.
Many people
make the mistaken assumption that because it is "just a desk
appearance ticket" they do not need to appear with a lawyer.
This is a big mistake for a number of reasons.
First, you
need a lawyer because you are being charged with a criminal offense.
Although desk appearance ticket cases in New York City do tend to be cases of less seriousness than others,
they still represent potential criminal convictions and jail time.
In fact, desk appearance ticket cases can and do frequently make their
way through the full scope of the criminal justice system all the way to
trial. The fact of the matter is that your freedom and your
reputation are at stake.
Do not assume that your
"court date" is going to be your opportunity to explain anything to the
judge or present evidence. The first date of the desk appearance
ticket is the arraignment. You enter a plea (like "not guilty")
and are informed of the charges. That's all. The judge is
simply not going to listen to anything about the case. No judge at
the desk appearance ticket arraignment is likely to permit you to say
anything about your case. Even if you are going to represent
yourself, the arraignment is not the appropriate time in the process for
arguing a case.
If you want
to contest the charges, you will have to fight the case in criminal
court through the complete criminal justice system in New York City.
Unless you are a criminal defense lawyer then you are not prepared to do
that. The prosecutor who will prosecute you does nothing else but
prosecute cases in the criminal justice system. The judge who will
rule on issues of law throughout your case does little or nothing else
besides criminal cases. Your freedom, reputation, and future may
well be at stake. Why on earth would you willingly attempt to
negotiate your way through this world by yourself with no training or
experience?
Another benefit to having a
private lawyer at your Desk Appearance Ticket arraignment is that as a
practical matter, you will likely be done in court sooner, a lot sooner.
The public defenders who staff the desk appearance courtrooms are
provided numerous files of all the people who have desk appearance
tickets that day. They must interview each one individually.
Typically, private counsel with one case can have a notice of appearance
up before the public defenders turn in stacks of notices of cases to be
called. In this way, you can be in and out often extremely
quickly.
The alternative, if you
don't have your own lawyer with you, is to wait for one of the public
defenders to call out your name and interview you in the hallway before
having your case called. Eventually, someone will talk to you and
have your case called. There can be no possible way to predict,
however, precisely how quickly or slowly your case will be called.
Finally, if you are someone
who the court is not going to be willing to appoint a lawyer, and you do
not appear with lawyer, it is quite likely that nothing will happen with
your case and you will be told to return with a lawyer in any event.
Many judges are of the opinion that if you do not qualify for free
counsel that they will not even consider working a case out with a
public defender for you.
Want more information about
desk appearance tickets in New York City? Visit our
separate site devoted solely to
Desk Appearance
Tickets in New York City.
