This is a warrant that the police get by going directly to a Superior Court judge in one of the criminal courts in Los Angeles and asking the judge to issue a warrant for a particular defendant or defendants that they're trying to get their hands on, arrest and hopefully have the prosecutors and District Attorneys in Los Angeles file a case against them.
So, it's a situation where the judge is issuing the warrant instead of the prosecutors and District Attorney's office. What's interesting about this is the fact that usually, probably in 95% or better of cases in Los Angeles it is the prosecutors who would normally issue the warrant or file the charges against a particular person.
In other words, the police go to the prosecutors. They show them the evidence they have and if the defendant is not already arrested, then the prosecutors will issue a warrant for their arrest.
Then, they will file a criminal case against them and then they either send them a letter to appear in court or they'll send the police out to arrest them, or they'll just put a warrant in the system and eventually the person will end up getting arrested when they come in contact with the police or the police choose to execute that warrant and arrest them.
Why Would Police Want to Get a Ramey Warrant?
A lot of reasons why the police seek a Ramey warrant instead of doing what's called a “walk-through” warrant where they walk a case through the District Attorney's office is typically because they believe there's a good chance the prosecutors are going to look at the case and decide to reject the case and not file the case.
Another reason is that they might tell the police that they need to do more investigation on the case and get more evidence, which is very similar to a rejection, but it's a rejection for more investigation.
So, instead of going to the prosecutors who might not agree to file a case or a warrant against somebody, they're going to go to a judge. It's much faster. (See Goodwin v. Superior Court)
Strategy of Getting a Ramey Warrant
Usually what the strategy is in this Ramey warrant, what I've seen, is to try to get the missing piece of information or evidence that the prosecutors need in order to file the case.
That's either done through going to grab the person, finding it in their car when they grab the person, going to get them at their house, finding it at their house or on their person either, some sort of evidence or information.
Finally, and probably the biggest thing they're trying to do is get the particular defendant to confess to the crime. They will arrest them, shake them up, usually threaten them, tell them they have all the evidence against them.
Maybe one of the co-defendants is saying something against them, and then they will try to get that person to make a statement. With that statement, if somebody is stupid enough to make a statement because the police scared them, then what ends up happening, now they go to the prosecutors and say we did a Ramey warrant.
We were able to arrest the person and we got a statement from the person. Now we want you to file a case against them because we've given you the missing piece, prosecutors.
How is a Ramey Warrant Different from Arrest Warrant?
So, the difference between a Ramey warrant and a usual arrest warrant is a situation where the judge issues the warrant for the person's arrest versus the prosecutors who are the ones who usually do that.
If you have a criminal case and one of your loved ones has been arrested and it was based on a Ramey warrant, come in and let's sit down and get the ball moving in the right direction so you or your loved on can be protected and get the best possible result.