How are court dates determined when you get arrested?

Question

When you get arrested, you get a court date and I was just wondering how the date is determined?

Answer 1

In general, it's often determined by your custody status, at least for jury weeks. Those in jail get first shot, longest in jail getting priority. Next are those out on bond, longest getting priority.

For trials before the court, pretty much the same thing.

For pleas and routine pre-trial appearances, the clerk makes up the docket as they are ready or as the clerk comes to their file. Various agreements between the attorney's can change things either way.

If you're talking about an arraignment date you get right after arrest, it's probably just a system of setting all the new arrests for that day on whatever non-jury day has been assigned for that day's arrests in the appropriate court.  

Answer 2

when court is available for the type of crime.. city county federal

whether or not you want a trial jury. etc..

Answer 3

In some courts, there are certain days of the week that the court does what is called an Initial Hearing on the charges.  Say for example, every Thurs. morning.  When the police issue tickets for criminal cases, they know to set the date for the next Thurs. morning.  Same with the jail.  If someone posts a bond, they set the Initial Hearing date for the next Thurs. morning.  If someone is in custody, they usually have their initial hearing the next day. Not all courts are like that though.  Each one is run differently so I would assume their are all different ways used to set those dates.

Answer 4

If the crime you committed is a major offence, they will pick a date immediately as you will be sitting in custody until then.  If it's minor the date may not happen for a couple of months.  Depending on how busy court is, etc.  Then it most likely will get dragged on from there and could take months for it to end.