If you fail to appear at court in Massachusetts, the prosecutor will usually ask the judge to issue a default warrant for your arrest.
A criminal defendant can have the warrant recalled by voluntarily appearing at the courthouse. (See my earlier post Walk-In Warrants: Going to Court When There’s a Warrant for Your Arrest.)
In these scenarios, the court can and likely will order you to pay a $50 fee to have the warrant recalled. This fee is required by M.G.L. c. 276, § 30 which, in part, reads,
whenever a default warrant, issued in any jurisdiction in the commonwealth against any person, is recalled by a court, the court shall assess a fee of fifty dollars against the person in payment of the costs of recalling the warrant.
Nevertheless, the same statute authorizes the court to waive the fee when appropriate:
the court may waive the fee upon a finding of good cause or upon a finding that such a fee would cause a substantial financial hardship to the person, the person’s immediate family or the person’s dependents.
If the police arrest you while a default warrant is open, they will bring you to the courthouse in their custody. When this happens, the defendant must pay a $75 fee to the city or town whose officers made the arrest.
Again, if the defendant is indigent, the court may waive the fee. However, in lieu of paying the fee, the defendant will have to perform one day of community service.
Any person arrested on a warrant issued because such person has forfeited or defaulted on his bail bond or recognizance or has been surrendered by a probation officer shall be required by the court to pay a fee of $75 payable to the city or town in which such arrest was effected, unless the judge finds that such person is indigent or that such fee would cause a substantial financial hardship to the person, the person’s immediate family or the person’s dependents, in which case such person shall be required to perform one day of community service.
The community service requirement may be waived by the court if the defendant is not physically or mentally capable of participating.