§ 133.076 Failure to appear on criminal citation

If you get a criminal citation and you don't show up when you're supposed to, you can be charged with a separate crime. This happens if you skip the first appearance you were told to make, miss your trial date, or fail to show up for any other court date you were required to attend. The key part is that you have to know about the requirement and still choose not to go. If you genuinely didn't know about the date, that's different from just deciding not to show up.

This offense is called "failure to appear on a criminal citation." It's a Class A misdemeanor, which is a serious charge in Oregon. Class A misdemeanors can carry penalties including up to a year in jail and fines up to $6,250. So missing a court date doesn't just risk a warrant for your arrest. It can add a whole new criminal charge on top of whatever you were originally cited for.