Prosecutors offer locals with misdemeanor warrants opportunity to avoid arrest

City officials are giving low-level offenders the chance to clear their name.

The event, which begins next week, is being called Warrant Week.

This special opportunity is for people with warrants for a misdemeanor charge.

They can have them recalled to set a new court date.

"This is a win–win all around. It really helps us to handle these cases more efficiently," said Lincoln City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick.

From Tuesday, August 7th, through Friday August 10th, anyone who has a city or county court warrant can come to the courthouse to request their case be sent in to court.

"What we are hoping to do is get people who maybe had a sick kid on the day they were supposed to be in court, had something going on with work that they couldn’t miss and then they were just afraid to come in because they were going to get arrested," said Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon.

Local judges have agreed to recall these low level warrants to set up a new hearing date to get them taken care of.

There are close to 5,000 warrants out in the city of Lincoln, the majority of which for city and county misdemeanors.

Officials are hoping to get the word out and attract as many people as possible.

"If we get 50 or 60, those are 50 or 60 people that when they are pulled over for traffic ticket, police officer doesn’t have to say you’ve got a warrant, now I have to take you in and they miss work or they have to make arrangements with their family," said Kirkpatrick.

Officials hope this event will help with efficiency in law enforcement processes like arrests and jailing.

This is the first time the city and county attorney have done something like this.

If it goes well they are open to deploying more warrant weeks in the future.

"This allows them to kind of wipe that slate clean and start over and deal with what in many cases are relatively small offenses," said Kirkpatrick.

If you don’t have an attorney, you can contact the county or city attorney and they will be able to answer questions about this process.

the numbers to call are City Attorney (402)441-6875 and County Attorney (402)441-7321.