What happens when a magistrate issues a criminal summons for a defendant but the defendant can’t be located until after the court date on the summons has passed? For example, suppose that Magistrate Morales issues a criminal summons on January 1. The summons orders Defendant Daniels to come to court on February 1 to answer a charge of misdemeanor larceny of his neighbor’s lawnmower. No law enforcement officer is able to locate and serve Daniels until February 14, when Officer Oxendine spots Daniels enjoying a Valentine’s Day meal out with his girlfriend. What’s the officer supposed to do? Options. The officer might consider the following courses of action: She could print out the summons from NCAWARE, scratch out the court date, and write in a new date – for example, March 1. She could then serve the summons. I believe that she would be able to enter the new court date in NCAWARE when recording service of the document, and that NCAWARE would transmit the new date electronically to ACIS. She could contact the clerk’s office and ask that office to alter the summons to reflect a new court date – for example, March 1 – and then print out a copy of the updated summons and serve it. To make that process work, I believe that the officer would need to return/reassign the summons to the clerk in NCAWARE and the clerk would need to change the court date and redeliver/reassign the summons back to the officer. She could contact [...]
Faculty Coordinators
