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| Shannon McAuliffe |
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| Cameron French |
In 2021, in Oklahoma, a woman who was eight months pregnant lost her job and apartment after being jailed for missing a court date she didn't know she'd missed.[2]
Examples like these, of dire implications for missed court dates, are far from unique. Millions of Americans miss their court dates each year,[3] despite their best intentions. And forgetting about it is just one reason people may miss court.
Others may remember their court date but be unable to get there because of a glitch in public transportation, a call from school that their kid is sick, or the need to find new housing. Life is complicated, and even more so for those who have fewer resources.
In nonlegal contexts, missed appointments are often just rescheduled. But courts typically employ uncompromising schedules: When someone misses their date, intentionally or not, courts issue warrants for their arrest.
This can lead to snowballing penalties for millions of Americans — as well as their families, employers and communities — and impedes the efficient operation of the court.
The truth is that courts deal with humans, and humans miss appointments. To account for this fact of life, courts should consider operating like every other industry — e.g., medical, voting, licensing, housing, mechanics, beauty, etc. — by offering two types of flexibility: flexible scheduling before the date, and extending grace periods after a missed appointment to allow people to appear before warrants are issued.
Ultimately, these practices can help reduce nonappearance and increase access to justice. Adding flexibility also greatly benefits courts by promoting higher appearance and resolution rates and improving court efficiency, and it saves money and resources on an avoidable warrant process.[4]
Allow Flexible Scheduling and Rescheduling
The core idea of flexible scheduling and rescheduling is that courts allow people to choose their appearance dates or reschedule previously scheduled dates. Just like most appointments we make, this allows people to choose times that maximize their ability to attend.
Some courts around the country are already doing this, and the results are promising.[5] Courts have successfully allowed people to choose their court dates for first appearances for citation offenses,[6] and they have successfully offered so-called walk-in dockets, where people can appear before their court date or after they have missed a hearing.[7]
The Salt Lake City Justice Court, for instance, anecdotally reported seeing a 98% appearance rate among court users who had set their own arraignment date.[8]
It may also be easier to implement flexible scheduling than courts expect — low-cost, off-the-shelf scheduling platforms exist that make it easy for people to schedule online or call the court.
The Kansas City Municipal Court is one jurisdiction that has changed its walk-in docket so people can resolve their warrants. The court introduced a Calendly function to the court's website,[9] allowing people to choose their own hearing date and time to resolve an appearance warrant. The court also explicitly advised people they would not be arrested when they showed up to address their appearance warrants.
During the first three months of 2024, the court had a 50% increase in walk-ins compared to the three-month average in 2023, before the changes were implemented.[10]
This approach has also facilitated ultimate case resolution — by having people choose their court date to address their warrants, the court now knows who is coming in, and when, allowing clerks and lawyers to come prepared to address and often resolve those cases, rather than just clearing a warrant.
Grace Periods
Grace periods — a period allowing people to cure missed appearances before a warrant is issued — recognize that simple human error leads to most missed court dates, and provide a cushion to remedy the nonappearance.
The amount of time can vary, but courts should consider grace periods of seven to 30 days. The key lies in ensuring that people receive a notification — by text, email or mail — that they missed court, and directions on how to remedy the missed appearance, with enough time to follow up on it.
An important element of these notifications is that they address people's fear of arrest. The most effective notifications would explicitly and unequivocally advise people that they will not be arrested when acting to remedy the nonappearance.
Many people reasonably fear that appearing in court after a missed appearance will result in arrest and detainment.[11] For grace periods to be most effective, they should allay these fears by clearly explaining the best ways for people to meet their legal obligations, and to encourage action without fear of arrest.
While individual judges may implement their own practices on waiting before issuing warrants, grace periods should be standardized and consistently applied to give all court users in a jurisdiction equal opportunity to cure a missed appearance. This can be done by statute, court rule or judicial agreement.
Two examples show how grace periods are already being implemented. Georgia law grants a mandatory 30-day grace period before a nonappearance warrant is issued for a uniform citation offense.[12]
The court must send notice via mail of the missed date and advise people that they have 30 days to resolve the charges, or to waive arraignment and plead not guilty. The law also postpones license suspension for those 30 days.
If the person does not resolve the case or does not plead not guilty within the 30 days, the warrant will be issued and their license will be suspended.
In the Kansas City Municipal Court example about walk-in court, discussed earlier, the court makes a vital no-arrest assertion on its website: "At the general walk-in dockets you may ... [a]sk the judge to cancel your warrants. The decision is up to the judge, but you WILL NOT be arrested on those warrants."[13] This promise likely accounts, in part, for the large increase in appearance at the walk-in docket.
Why Flexibility Matters
The persistent myth underlying nonappearance is that people miss on purpose, or that they skip court because they don't recognize how important it is to appear. A rising tide of research and actual court practice suggests otherwise: People overwhelmingly want and intend to fulfill these legal obligations, but life gets in the way.
Courts looking to increase justice and improve their own efficiency would do well to adopt practices that acknowledge this reality.[14] Flexibility — particularly in scheduling, rescheduling and offering grace periods — is one way courts can do this.
Shannon McAuliffe is an associate managing director and Cameron French is a senior communications associate at ideas42.
"Perspectives" is a regular feature written by guest authors on access to justice issues. To pitch article ideas, email expertanalysis@law360.com.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
[1] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/georgia-activists-demand-text-system-remind-people-court-cases/HYU47SQOVJGF3LXGJNDANNOSMU/.
[2] https://www.route-fifty.com/management/2024/09/national-blueprint-taking-money-out-justice/399602/.
[3] https://www.vera.org/news/millions-of-people-in-the-u-s-miss-their-court-date-with-dire-consequences.
[4] Individuals and their families face fines, arrests, and possible jail time for missing court, but courts also bear the cost of missed appearances. "A 2007 estimate places the cost of each missed appearance at $1,185, based on costs to reschedule the original hearing and to locate the court user." https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/national-guide-improving-court-appearance.pdf, at pg. 1, citing (Gouldin, L. P. (2021). New Perspectives on Pretrial Nonappearance. In Scott-Hayward, C.S., Copp, J.E., Demuth, S. (Eds.), Handbook on Pretrial Justice (pp. 296-323.). Taylor & Francis.). "This likely underestimates the true costs to courts, attorneys, police departments, and jails. In total, missed court dates likely cost state and local governments up to tens of millions of dollars per year." https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/national-guide-improving-court-appearance.pdf.
[5] https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/national-guide-improving-court-appearance.pdf at pgs. 31-34.
[6] The Salt Lake City Justice Court allows its users to schedule their own arraignments via Doodle or phone on eligible charges. https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/national-guide-improving-court-appearance.pdf at pg.57. The web portal for arraignment scheduling can be seen here, https://www.slc.gov/courts/schedule-your-arraignment/.
[7] https://www.ideas42.org/15-years-of-ideas42/courts-without-fear/.
[8] https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/national-guide-improving-court-appearance.pdf at pg. 57.
[9] https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/municipal-court/about-municipal-court/walk-in-dockets.
[10] https://www.ideas42.org/15-years-of-ideas42/courts-without-fear/.
[11] E.g., https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/homelessness_poverty/homeless-courts/HCP-2001-Study.pdf; https://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Harris-County-Nonappearance-Study-and-Recommendations.pdf, pgs. 43-47.
[12] GA Code § 17-6-11(b) (2023); § 17-7-90(b) (2023).
[13] https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/municipal-court/about-municipal-court/walk-in-dockets.
[14] Check out the National Guide to Improving Court Appearance for more in-depth guidance and examples of grace period policies.