Moving to escape charges?

General Questions
#1

If someone had misdemeanor charges and just decided to move to the other side of the country would the police in the original state really care enough to try and find the person? I understand there would be a warrant placed for the person’s arrest but what if said person did nothing to piss off the cops after that?

I can see how a taillight that is out would get the police to check up on you but what about just taking a bus across the country or renting some kind of vehicle that won’t have those issues? It seems like the police have to first stop you for some reason to check up on you. If that doesn’t happen I don’t see how the person will be caught. I could see that obviously for murder charges but seriously misdemeanor charges??

There are ways to work online that require no background check because you work for yourself. As well as places to live where you could rent without a background check if you were initially extremely nice and trouble-free looking.

#2

Interstate warrants are up to the state that issues them, and whether they will extradite. Most aren’t going to bother for a misdemeanor, and if they do the extradite order would only be for surrounding states.

#3

I personally would get local charges resolved before moving. Most misdemeanor charges would be a fine or at most a very short jail term. With overcrowding they often release non-violent offenders early (like after a few days).

The alternative is to have this over your head the rest of your life. Computer records don’t get dusty or forgotten like paper files. A background check for a new job ten years from now could get flagged. You might not get arrested (assuming a Interstate warrant was never issued) but that flag could cost you a new job opportunity.

#4

Need answer fast? :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Depending on how picayune the issue is, they may not even care to collect you from other places in the same state.

#6

True story: I once worked with a person who got her car stolen in Texas. They actually found the car and the thief in another part of the same state. But the prosecutor told her that they didn’t have the budget to have the thief transported back to the place where the car was stolen. So unless she wanted to pay for it, the thief was going to be released.

Just because you moved and the state you moved from isn’t going to extradite you doesn’t mean the warrant gets cancelled. Anytime you have a run in with the police, you can expect to spend a few hours or a few days in a holding cell waiting to see what happens.

Police don’t just check up on you when you do something wrong. Note the infamous stop and frisk program in New York City. They would run everybody they stopped and frisked. Even though New York has cut back on stop and frisk, rest assured that there are similar programs operating much more under the radar all over the place. Heck, even if you are the VICTIM of crime, police demand to see your ID and run it. In many places, when police stop a car for a traffic violation, they demand that all of the passengers in the car (not just the driver) produce an ID. And the last time my transmission gave out and I was stopped on the side of the highway, a state trooper stopped to investigate and the first thing he did was take my drivers license and go back to his car with it before he even asked me what was wrong.

And, yes, believe it or not, in some parts of the country, especially the south, police and ICE agents stop inter-city buses and sometimes make everyone get off and check them out under the pretense of looking for drugs.