I noticed that for speeding tickets and class C misdemeanors in our county court in Texas, the court will many times schedule an announcement repeatedly.
If a defendant shows up for the announcement and announces ready for trial, the court will then set another announcement for a month away. And the process will sometimes repeat itself for month after month for years.
My first thoughts were that those courts are very crowded and a minor offense like that just doesn't always get scheduled for trial due to other more important offenses taking the place in line. But the end result seems as if the court is trying to get the defendants who sometimes are Pro Se to just 'give up' because of spending so much time in court but not actually getting a trial.
What would be the worst that could happen if the defendant doesn't show up? Would the court just take it as a default announcement of 'ready for trial' or would it issue a warrant for the arrest of the defendant?
This is a trial 'de novo' and was tried in a municipal court prior to this one. For some strange reason, one of the trials I'm interested in also wound up in a court that normally only hears civil cases. I am also wondering why it was placed into a civil court being heard by a judge that normally only does civil trials.
