Home-made Continuance Stop Order for use in County and JP courts against Serial Continuance Artists.

CONTINUANCE_STOP_ORDER.docx (16 Kb, 58 downloads) Continuance Stop Order

I'm going to go with a no, that's not legal. A judge cannot just grant a default conviction in any criminal case, and cannot predetermine a specific sentence before hearing any evidence.

The court is free to run its docket how it needs to so there is nothing wrong with making them sign some sort of docket control order to force the case to a setting or to trial. Giving them the option of 3 days to pick from seems overly generous to me. Set a date, give them notice, issue a capias if they don't appear or give a valid reason for a continuance.

If this is a JP appeal being heard in the County Court and they fail to appear then the appeal can just be abated. The original conviction and sentence from the JP court will then take effect.