What Happens After an Arrest in Upstate New York

Two Ways a Case Begins: Appearance Ticket or Custody

After an arrest in New York, one of two things happens. For many misdemeanors and lower-level charges, the police release you with an appearance ticket, a written order to show up in a specific local court on a future date. For more serious charges, or where release is not authorized, you are held for arraignment, which must happen without unnecessary delay.

An appearance ticket feels less serious because you go home the same day. Do not be fooled by that. The charge on the ticket is a real criminal charge, the court date on it starts the case, and everything on this page still applies. The advantage of an appearance ticket is time: you can retain an attorney and walk into that first court date prepared instead of surprised.

If you are held, arraignment happens in the local court where the charge was filed, or after hours through the county's centralized arraignment process. Weekend and overnight arraignments are routine in this region, and they are exactly the arraignments where having your own attorney is least likely and matters most.

What Actually Happens at Arraignment

Arraignment is short, often just a few minutes, but several things with long consequences happen in that window:

• You are formally charged. The judge reads or references the accusatory instrument and enters a not guilty plea for you in nearly every case.
• Release is decided. Under New York's bail rules, most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies require release on recognizance or the least restrictive conditions. For qualifying offenses, the judge can set bail or, in some cases, remand.
• An order of protection may be issued. In domestic violence and assault cases this is close to automatic, and a full stay-away order can bar you from your own home that same night. See how orders of protection work.
• In DWI cases, your license is dealt with. Suspension at arraignment is standard, and if you refused the chemical test, the DMV refusal hearing gets scheduled within days.

If you are held on a felony, New York law puts a clock on the prosecution: roughly five to six days (120 hours, or 144 if a weekend or holiday falls in the window) to dispose of the case, typically by grand jury indictment, or to begin a preliminary hearing. If the deadline passes, you must generally be released, unless the delay was caused by your own request, the DA has already certified that an indictment was voted, or the court finds good cause to extend it. Those first days are when a defense attorney can sometimes affect whether a felony ever gets indicted at all.

After Arraignment: How the Case Actually Unfolds

1. Discovery. New York's discovery law requires the prosecution to turn over its evidence on a schedule: police reports, body camera footage, breath test records, lab results, witness statements. Reviewing this material is where most defenses are found.
2. Motions. Your attorney files motions to suppress evidence, challenge the stop or the statements, or dismiss defective charges. Suppression hearings put officers under oath and test the prosecution's case.
3. Negotiation. Most cases resolve by negotiated plea. The offers you get track directly with the weaknesses your attorney has exposed and a credible willingness to try the case.
4. Trial or disposition. Misdemeanors are tried in the local city, town, or village court. Felonies are indicted by a grand jury and tried in county court.

What to Do, and Not Do, Right Now

• Stop talking about the case. Not to police without your lawyer, not to the complaining witness, not on the phone from jail (those calls are recorded), and not on social media.
• Do not contact the protected party if an order of protection was issued, even if they contact you first. That contact is a new crime, criminal contempt, regardless of who reached out.
• Write down everything you remember about the stop or the incident while it is fresh: times, locations, who said what, who was present.
• Keep every paper you were given. The appearance ticket, the order of protection, the DWI suspension notice. The dates on them are deadlines.
• Call an attorney before your first court date, not after. The consultation is free and the early decisions are the ones you cannot redo.

Where Your Case Will Be Heard

Misdemeanors and violations are handled in the city, town, or village court where the charge arose. Felonies are arraigned locally and then move to the county court. Each county page below covers the specific courts, the local charge patterns, and how cases move in that jurisdiction.

Frequently Asked Questions

Talk to a Defense Attorney Before Your First Court Date

Whether you were released with an appearance ticket or someone you love is being held for arraignment, the case is moving now. Attorney Andrew DeLuca offers free consultations and answers his own phone, day or night.

Call today for a free consultation at 518-245-9109