Are there any circumstances under which a trooper won't run a Driver's License check?

Question

I had an interesting conversation with a buddy of mine who is visiting from SC. Before he left, he was ticketed for DUI. Not that this makes a difference, but he had a clean record and has never been ticketed with DUI. He says he blew right at .08 (not sure if calibration issues would have come into play here) on the test. Anyways, he never went for his court date on Sept. 19, 2007 and he is sure that his license is suspended and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The other night he was driving home late (not drunk he works a late shift at a job) and was pulled over by NYS troopers. They did a Field Sobriety Test on him and let him go. What he is wondering and frankly so am I, is how he was let go? Wouldn't the officers be compelled to run a check, especially on somebody pulled over on suspicion of DUI? Is there any odd way he could have slipped through the system in SC? Also, he was hired at a job that does background checks and nothing came up there either.

Answer 1

The information hasn't been entered into the computer yet.
Edit. Both states are members of the DLC. His license will be suspended, and most likely a warrant for failure to appear will be issued.

Answer 2

It depends...if NY doesn't have a reciprocal agreement with South Carolina it may never show up in NY...but don't count on it! He really needs to fix this in SC...why you'd not show for a court date is beyond me...chances are it just hasn't gotten entered...but there is most likely a warrant out on him so eventually it WILL catch up to him...the longer you wait the harder it will be to take care of the problem.

But it is possible that the trooper didn't run the license...just pretty improbable.

Answer 3

It could be that the court has not entered the info that he was a no show. Courts are slow due to backups in caseloads.

Also, police are not compelled to run anything. It's a good, safe practice to run everyone we come in contact with but it's not mandatory. Chances are the trooper felt he had a license and since he was out prowling for drunks, just let him go w/ a license check.

Answer 4

1) Nothing will come up on his record unless it is done by the government (courts records, fbi, cia, police records, etc.)
2) There are many instances when the police will pull you over and give you a warning, let you off the hook, blah blah blah, etc. This was probably the case.
3) If an officer takes your license back to the squad car then 99.9% of the time he is going to look up your drivers license number to check for warrants [your friend went to court therefore it is impossible for the courts to issue a warrant for his arrest, they only do this when a person does NOT show up to court]

Answer 5

You've had good answers here already. One more possibility is that the warrant was "no extradition" meaning South Carolina won't pay to bring him from New York. This might be moreso if the warrant were from a small jurisdiction- a city- with fewer resources.

Answer 6

There are many times where we have issues running out of state information. Usually there isn't a problem. Sometimes the reply might only be delayed a few minutes, other times it could take over an hour.

Answer 7

Possibilities-

1-Cop didn't run his license. Seldom happens..
2-System was down.
3-System hasn't been updated.
4-The warrant for the FTA traffic, is "state-wide extradition only", therefore not showing on the out of state computer

Answer 8

Its all possible that SC and NYC don't share BMV records. On a background check, only convictions will show, considering they were recorded in the Federal data base.

Answer 9

Sounds like he got lucky. Since the offense occurred out of state it may take sometime for the information to get out. He needs to take care of this before it becomes a bigger issue.

Answer 10

Generally, if they pull you over, they will run a check.