Check whether a North Carolina (NC) traffic charge requires a court appearance
check_traffic_charge"Do I have to go to court for this ticket?" — answered from the citation itself.
For someone holding a paper North Carolina (NC) citation, BEFORE their case is searchable. Returns waiver eligibility per charge (waivable / mandatory / conditional) plus how to ask for a reduction or dismissal. FAST — no court-portal request, unlike the other tools.
IF THE USER HAS A CASE NUMBER, USE lookup_court_case INSTEAD. It runs these same
rules on the real charges and also gives the court date and the amount owed. This
tool is for when there is no case number yet.
THE STATUTE DRIVES THE ANSWER. Pass the G.S. number printed on the citation
(e.g. "20-141(J1)", "G.S. 20-127(D)"). Without a parseable statute a charge cannot
be classified — ask the user to read the "G.S." line off their citation rather than
guessing from the offense name. unclassified lists any charge that fell through.
PASS EVERY CHARGE ON THE CITATION, not just the one asked about. Eligibility is computed ACROSS the citation: one mandatory charge forces an appearance for all of them. Reporting on a single charge in isolation gives the wrong answer — a real Wake case has two waivable charges and one DWLR, and the correct answer is "you must appear".
viaCompanionCharge: true on a charge means exactly that: it would be waivable on
its own, but AOC mandatory-appearance item #39 makes every violation on a citation
mandatory once ANY violation on it is. Never tell someone they can pay such a charge
off separately or handle it by mail — the whole citation must be appeared on. Say
which charge is forcing it, since that is usually the one they want to ask the
District Attorney about.
SPEED CHANGES THE ANSWER. With no charged speed a speeding charge comes back
conditional, not waivable: over 80 mph, or more than 15 over while over 55, is
mandatory. Pass actual_speed/speed_limit if known — or just pass the offense line
verbatim ("SPEEDING 85 IN A 65"), which is parsed for the speed.
PASS offense VERBATIM FROM THE CITATION for every charge, not a paraphrase. A few
rules cannot be decided from the statute number alone and are read off the offense
text: texting is waivable UNLESS it was while operating a school bus, and a
registration or title violation is waivable UNLESS it involves stolen, altered or
fictitious plates or certificates. Both statutes are the same either way, so a
paraphrase that drops "school bus" or "fictitious" silently turns a mandatory
appearance into "waivable". If the user summarises rather than quotes, ask for the
exact wording on the citation before answering.
county (optional) decides the reduction path: participating counties get NC's
online Guide & File link, others get the in-person District Attorney route.
A null citationOptions means these are NOT waivable-citation charges — either not
NC Chapter-20 traffic, or a serious criminal charge (impaired driving, death by
vehicle, eluding) or a felony, where "it's just a ticket" framing is wrong. Say that
plainly; do not present it as "no appearance required".
General guidance for the charges given, NOT a lookup of any real case, and not legal
advice. amountDue is always null here — there is no case to read a balance from.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| county | No | ||
| charges | Yes |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
No arguments | |||