Failure to appear
In law, failure to appear consists of a defendant or respondent refusing to appear at (or within) the stated time before a tribunal as directed in a summons. Where the conduct alleged in the summons or complaint is an infraction or summary offence, failure to appear is a process crime of common law for which a bench-warrant can be issued if the defendant promised to appear for release or if it happens to be the sentencing. If the conduct alleged is a tort or other cause for civil action, failure to appear generally results in a  default judgment by the court in favor of the plaintiff/petitioner. In the United States. Failure to appear in U.S. federal law is an offense, depending on the seriousness of the offense the person is being sentenced for: A witness allowed for release is, in the result, treated the same as though for a misdemeanor. All states except for Maryland, Mississippi and Wyoming have similar state laws. The territories of the United States lack the crime. In Minnesota, the punishment for failure to appear can even exceed the punishment foreseen by the law for the underlying offense. In most jurisdictions  a crime based on another's legal importance, different from qualifications, as for example threatening with bodily violence, never exceeds the punishment of the basic crime, which in the example was bodily violence. Civil law. In civil law, there is regularly no crime of failure to appear at the criminal court. However, an arrest warrant may be issued and resisting it may fulfill obstruction of a police officer in the exercise of his duties. Criticism. The criminal status of so-called bail jumping has been criticized as unreasonable due to daily-life and not unusual impedications to attending trial like  childcare and transport problems. Punishability for missing the trial because of hospitalization has been seen as injustice. Less supportably than for other crimes, it keeps criminals shut in the punitive system and, more particularly, its institutions. In case of determining bail, it exacerbates the placement on bail significantly.