You can no longer simply pay the fine. To handle a warrant, you must turn yourself in to the issuing court, with or without an attorney. You'll try to negotiate a recall of the warrant[s] and negotiate a plea bargain on any Failure to Appear charge. You'll try to negotiate bail reduction or OR release. You'll try to negotiate a plea bargain or take to trial the outstanding charge that caused the warrant. On misdemeanors and infractions, your attorney can appear in court without the defendant being present. Effective plea-bargaining, using whatever legal defenses, facts and sympathies there may be, could possibly keep you out of jail, or at least dramatically reduce it. Unless you're competent to effectively represent yourself in court against a professional prosecutor trying to put you in jail, most people hire an attorney who can.
Answered on Sep 14th, 2012 at 6:04 PM