What will happen after a Failure to appear?
You can’t know if she will be held. Failure to Appear may also be a new offense charged, requiring a new bond, and the old bond is usually revoked and increased. You don’t say what court or offense. If it’s something petty, a fine-only offense, she can probably plead and pay or make a payment plan right there if it’s a new FTA charge. But putting it off isn’t going to make it better, and showing up on her own may help.
Your friend is doing the right thing. She needs to appear tomorrow, see the judge, and explain the situation. The judge would never jail a person that voluntarily comes before them on an original charge that would not result in jail time anyway. If the judge doesn’t believe her story about why she failed to appear at the last court date, she may get an additional fine.
Sorry, but the story is bull sh!t! If there was a warrant out for her and she showed up to the court and was told “that the visiting judge had no jurisdiction to lift the court bench warrant and that only the issuing judge could do so”, she would not have been allowed to leave the court. She would have been arrested and placed in jail till the issuing judge returned .
