You must appear
in court on all criminal offenses, unless you are charged with
one or more pre-payable non-traffic
misdemeanor offenses and have paid the correct amount
to the clerk, and your
payment has been received by the Clerk before
your trial date.
You need to arrive
at the courthouse complex well before 9:00 a.m.
You should allow time to walk from the parking garages
and lots to the court building.
Thereafter, you may encounter a line to pass through the
metal detectors before going into the appropriate courtroom.
You need to be
in the courtroom before 9:00 a.m., as court will start promptly
at 9:00 a.m. Be sure
you are in the correct courtroom.
Once in the courtroom,
stay in the courtroom until your case is called.
The clerks cannot check in the courtroom to see if your
case has been called. Depending
on the size of the dockets, court can sometimes last all day.
Defendants:
If you are a defendant,
listen for your name to be called and then promptly walk to the
front of the courtroom to the judge when the clerk calls your
case.
Witnesses:
If you are a witness
in a case, listen for the names of the defendant(s) in the case
to be called and then promptly walk to the front of the courtroom
to the judge when the clerk calls your case.
The victim and
witness assistance booth is located in the hallway outside of
courtrooms 5 & 6 in front of the elevators.
The victim and witness assistance program will have someone
at the booth at 9:00 a.m.
However, if the booth is empty, please proceed into the
appropriate courtroom.
Failure
to appear:
In
criminal cases, if a defendant fails to pay the fine and court costs
and also fails to appear in court, a separate warrant may be issued
against the defendant on the new charge of failure to appear. The
defendant then will have to stand trial on that charge, as well
as the original charge.
