hypo- Person gets a theft by check warrant issued on them, they then see their name in the paper and want to pay the checks. The person comes to your hot check department and wants to pay full restitution. The same person is not ever arrested on the check warrant. Do you have to then arrest on the warrant? Or would you dismiss the warrant or reduce charge to Class C IBC? I am wondering how other offices handle this type of situation.

If the defendant is willing to pay the full restitution and fees and they are not a repeat offender, I will usually let them pay the balance so the money goes to the local merchant not the bonding company. That does not apply if they have made arrangements to pay previously but have not followed thru on their agreement. The merchants have been very pleased to receive the funds quickly and local law enforcement works well with us to get the warrant withdrawn. Most of these cases are those defendants who did not receive our notification letter.
Hope that helps.

I submit an order to the County Judge when I file the case. It orders the clerk to issue a summons to the defendant to appear in court. If the defendant fails to appear on the summons date, then a warrant is issued. If the defendant appears in response to the summons, he can make restitution for the checks, be placed on probation, go to jail, pay a fine, etc. We almost always dispose of the case when the defendant appears in response to the summons. This also keeps the money out of the bondsman's pockets.

If someone with an open warrant wanders into our office, we call our investigator to arrest him.

If they appear bearing restitution payments, we will, of course, take the restitution and issue a receipt before the investigator appears. The investigator either walks them over to the jail, or allows them to call a bondsman, then walks them over to the jail.

Of course, before a theft by check charge is actually filed, the prospective defendant is notified about the check by his bank, by the complainant, and by our office. And after the charge is filed, his mailbox is filled with notices from every bondsman in the county. And we tell them, if they call and have an open warrant, that they will be arrested if they appear before they have posted bond.

As to ultimate disposition of the case, each depends on its unique facts. Dismissal with restitution is not rare for a first offender(nor is dismissal at any time, if justice requires it), but I have never done a reduction to IBC.

Penal Code 32.41 (g)says that IBC is not a lesser of theft. I understand from that that the legislature does not really want us to reduce theft to IBC.

It is interesting to see the range of practices around the state. The notice we send-to every address we can find- is not statutorily required, but is a good idea we learned from Denton.

Our practice is to pull the warrant and dismiss the case on full payment. This is not true, however, if the check writer is a repeat offender, is obviously engaged in intentional serial check writing, or is unable to make full restitution. We do not allow a person to make payments unless they are under bond, and we make each scheduled payment date a docketed court appearance.