Misdemeanour in USA 1992

[VapeVamp12]

Hi all
just looking for a point in the right direction
my partner was arrested in California whilst a tourist in 1992
he was in the back of a car where the driver was under the influence and was pulled over and arrested. He (my partner) was also under the influence of ecstasy. He was 21 at the time.
he was arrested with a misdemeanour and told he’d have to attend court at a later date.
he spoke to the embassy at the time and was advised that if he had no plans to return to USA then to just return home to uk - which he did 2 days later

he has has had no communication over the 31 years since this with any usa law enforcement

could anyone advise best place to go to ask if there’s any chance he could ever travel to USA again? Or advise that under these circumstances it just wouldn’t be possible? He said his info and fingerprints were taken and he stayed over night in a police cell

a friend in the states said to just give it a go and book a cheap flight to somewhere in the states using the visa waiver form but for obvious reasons he’s rather terrified of that option of they’ll arrest him on arrival

I know it’s not a great look to be high on drugs but he’s not into that crap anymore and we’ve discussed possibly travelling to the states but won’t try if it will
work out worse for him

thanks in advance

He should hire a local US solicitor to contact the court where he was due to appear to see if there is an active bench warrent. (which is an order by the judge to bring him to the court). A no-show could be found guilty and fined, so the non-payment is usualy contempt of court. if there is no reason to remove the warrent it just sits there open on the system.

His problem would be that if there is an active bench warrent he could be arrested in the State he lands in and be put in jail to be extradited across to California. The State he lands in cant deal with the charges and will have a legal process around the extradition itsself which could take days

Thank you that’s really helpful

I’ll tell him to try that

I thought maybe because of the amount of time that has lapsed it may not be on a system but he wouldn’t want to risk being arrested on arrival

Nope

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.greghillassociates.com/amp/do-warrants-eventually-expire-if-police-do-not-arrest-you.html

Google gave this ^ as the first result which says that as more systems provide data to a central database people find out they have problems