Q: 29 yo felony warrant out of MN, can’t get CA DL. Do I have to turn myself in to MN auth to get warrant retracted?

A: Normally an arrest warrant is cleared by the subject being taken into custody (booked into jail). This satisfies the warrant, then gone. A prosecutor can agree to various arrangements to avoid that (such as ask the court to set bail on the warrant prior to having custody of the defendant), but that is rarely done. a person who turns themselves in on an arrest warrant based on a new charge will typically see a judge for a bail hearing within a day or three, and get out after posting bail. But, when the defendant is in custody on an Arrest & Detain Order after an alleged probation violation, the court can take longer to give the person a hearing.

By default, a probation violation matter is split into two parts, and admit or deny hearing, and later a contested Morrissey hearing (like a trial to the sentencing judge). The judge will take many things into consideration, including time and what has happened over time. I know little to nothing about your case, of course. But in a decades old car theft case where the person fled probation, I would not be surprised to see the court (1) confirm a felony conviction; (2) execute some amount of jail time; (3) end probation after the completion of the jail time. Without knowing more, a concern would be potential prison time. To dig deeper into that, we'd look at the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, then and now -- in terms of the severity level of the crime of conviction, as well as criminal history score. That would reveal the presumptive guidelines sentence. Hopefully, that would be a presumptive prison commit sentence. If it did, that would be important to work to avoid.

A: Correction: "Hopefully, that would NOT be a presumptive prison commit sentence. ..."