If you get arrested in Nevada, the best case scenario is for the court to release you on your own recognizance (called an “OR release”). This means you do not have to post any bail money as long as you promise to attend all future court hearings in your criminal case.
Similar to bail, OR release may carry additional conditions such as:
- An order to stay away from the victim and/or
- An order to remain in Nevada while your case is ongoing.
If you miss a required court hearing or otherwise violate your release conditions, then the judge in your case will issue a bench warrant for your arrest. You may even face an additional criminal charge for failure to appear.
In this article, our Las Vegas criminal defense attorneys answer frequently-asked-questions about own recognizance release in Nevada.
- 1. What is “own recognizance” release?
- 2. How do I get it?
- 3. What are the rules of “own recognizance” release in Nevada?
- 4. What are the alternatives?
- 5. What if I miss a court appearance in Nevada?
- 6. Can bench warrants be recalled?
- Additional Reading
1. What is “own recognizance” release?
Own recognizance release (OR Release) in Nevada is when a judge permits you to be released from jail following an arrest without paying bail. However, there is a condition: You promise to appear at all future court appearances in your case.
Note that if you hire a defense attorney, they may be able to appear on your behalf for some – if not all – of those court hearings.1
Nevada bail hearings are where defendants may request OR release.
2. How do I get it?
At your bail hearing, the judge should grant you OR release unless the prosecution can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that bail is necessary:
- To ensure you will show up at future court hearings, and
- To protect community safety, as well as the victim and victim’s family.2
Some arguments your attorney may present on your behalf include that:
- You are trustworthy enough to appear at future court dates,
- You do not pose a flight risk,
- You are a responsible citizen,
- You have contributed to the community,
- You have family ties in the community,
- You have professional ties in the community,
- You are non-violent,
- You will stay away from any victims in your case,
- You have no – or negligible – criminal history,
- You are financially solvent, and/or
- The criminal charges are minor enough to justify an OR release.
Bail hearings can happen anytime during a criminal case while you are incarcerated. Your defense lawyer may request a spontaneous bail hearing during another court appearance such as the 72-hour hearing (which typically includes the arraignment).
In more complicated cases, attorneys may request a special court hearing devoted solely to the question of granting OR. Depending on the case, bail hearings can last a few minutes to several hours.
3. What are the rules of “own recognizance” release in Nevada?
The main rule of OR release is that you agree to come to court for all future court hearings in your case. At certain court hearings, your lawyer may appear in your place without you having to show up at all.
Depending on the specifics of the case, the judge may impose additional terms for OR release, such as:
- A no-contact order with any victims in the case,
- An order to stay away from certain areas of town, and/or
- An order to stay in the country or not leave the state.
4. What are the alternatives?
OR release is the best case scenario if you are facing criminal charges because it allows you to escape incarceration without paying bail.
The next best option is for the judge to set bail, which permits you to leave jail as long as you can pay up. Then once your criminal case ends without you violating any bail conditions, the bail money is returned to you.
Every court has a “bail schedule” that sets default bail amounts for specific crimes, though judges usually have the discretion to deviate from these amounts. If bail is too high for you to afford, you can file a motion asking the judge to lessen it.
Alternatively, you can hire a bail bondsman to post the full bail amount for you. Bondsmen usually charge you 15% of the bail amount. However, when the case concludes, the court returns the bail money to the bondsman, not you.
Lowering bail is the next best alternative to OR release in Nevada.
The worst-case scenario is that the judge orders you to remain in custody pending the outcome of the case with no opportunity of bailing out. This is called a “no bail hold” and usually happens in more serious cases involving:
- First-degree murder (where “the proof is evident and the presumption is great” that you committed the crime),
- Substantial white-collar offenses,
- Large-scale drug crimes, or
- Cases where you are a flight risk.
5. What if I miss a court appearance?
When you are out on OR and then miss a court appearance that you (or your defense counsel) were required to go to, the judge will issue a bench warrant for your arrest. This means you will get arrested if you are ever pulled over by police and they see that you have an active warrant.
Police can go out and search for anyone with an active warrant. However, this usually only happens if the warrant is for felony charges.
If thirty (30) days pass following the issuance of a bench warrant and you have not surrendered yourself, the D.A. may press the additional charge of failure to appear:
- Failing to appear on a misdemeanor case in Nevada carries misdemeanor penalties of up to 6 months in jail and/or fines of up to $1,000.
- Failing to appear on a gross misdemeanor charge carries gross misdemeanor penalties of up to 364 days in jail and/or fines of up to $2,000.
- Failing to appear on a felony charge carries category D felony penalties of 1 to 4 years in Nevada State Prison and fines of up to $5,000 (at the judge’s discretion).
If you fled Nevada in order to escape prosecution, then you automatically face 1 to 4 years in prison and fines of up to $5,000 even if your original charge was minor.3
Judges may grant probation in lieu of jail for failure to appear. In our experience, Nevada judges never grant OR release again if you failed to appear in court unless it was for a very good reason that was not your fault.
6. Can bench warrants be recalled?
Yes. Here at Las Vegas Defense Group, we have persuaded judges to recall (“quash”) literally thousands of bench warrants that issued when defendants failed to appear in court.
The process requires us to file a motion to quash the warrant, after which the court schedules a hearing. During this hearing, the judge will usually agree to quash your warrant as long as you do not have a long history of no-shows.
In most cases, we can get bench warrants quashed without you having to appear at the hearing. You just have to be careful to make all future required court appearances; otherwise, the judge might revoke your OR status and incarcerate you pending the outcome of your case.
O.R. release permits you to get out of custody without paying bail.
Additional Reading
For more in-depth information on O.R. release, refer to the following scholarly articles:
- Doing the Bare Minimum: Why a Preference Should Be Expressed for Personal Recognizance Release – Rutgers Journal of Law & Public Policy.
- An Inquiry to Identify the Jurisprudential-Legal Nature of Orders of release on own recognizance Through a Critical Review of the Existing Doctrines – The Judiciary Law Journal.
- Trends in Own Recognizance Release: From Manhattan to California – Pacific Law Journal.
- A Proposal for an Own Recognizance Release Bail Program, with Focus on the DWI Arrest – Idaho Law Review.
- The impact of extralegal characteristics on recognizance release among misdemeanants – Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice.
Legal References:
- NRS 178.484. See also Hanley v. State, (1969) 85 Nev. 154, 451 P.2d 852; Application of Wheeler, (1965) 81 Nev. 495, 406 P.2d 713.
- NRS 178.4851. Valdez-Jimenez v. Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada (2020) .
- NRS 199.335. NRS 193.130. See also Woolsey v. State, (1995) 111 Nev. 1440, 906 P.2d 723.