I Was Arrested For "failure To Show Up To Court", But I Was In Court.

I live and work in Tennessee, USA. There is a decent amount of preface here so please bare with me. On new year's day of 2021 I hit a stopped police vehicle that was in the rush lane of highway I-24 that runs through nashville. It was raining and I thought the blue lights in front of me were on the shoulder. By the time I realized, my brakes were not enough and I hydroplaned into the back of this stopped police cruiser. I will not make excuses, I was tired and it was raining hard and I should have stayed where I was instead of trying to drive home. Very luckily no one was in the vehicle I hit, as the officer whose car I hit was dealing with a traffic stop ahead, leaving myself the only person involved in the accident. I barely got out before I was tackled and asked what I was on. I was sober, passed field sobriety tests, but I did have a small amount of marijuana in the car with me that I immediately disclosed when I noticed they were already searching my car for stuff. They charged me with a misdeanor failure to excercise due care, as well as a simple possesion citation. I fully accepted these charges, I have never been involved with the police or law enforcement or anything in my life. I never made any attempts to deny what happened, because honestly I was young and dumb; and that was one of those moments in your life where you thank everything that no one else was involved, do your punishment, and learn to be better.

Because of COVID, our court date got pushed several times, but we finally went to court in June of 2021. When the judge heard what had happened and that the vehicle i hit was stopped in the rush lane, she dismissed the misdeanor charge entirely. I would go on to get clean, pass my drug tests, and get the simple possession charge expunged in late 2021. All seemed fine and dandy. Until about two months or so after we went to court. August of 2021, I was pulled over for speeding. The officer ran my plates and discovered two outstanding felony warrants for my arrest for failure to show up to court. And the actual felonies? two counts of wreckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.

I ask him if he has anymore details, he tells me the warrants say I failed to show up in court on the same day, at the same time, in the same court room, before the same judge that I was in court with that June.

I told him I had the receipt from that day in my glovebox, even showed him the exact day, time, court room, judge, everything. I had no idea what was going on but I know he was doing his job and that there is nothing he could do. I didn't fight, went to jail. car got towed, parents scrambled to bail me out the next morning. 300 dollars to get car back, 600 for the bail bondsman. Fast forward to when we go back to court, the same judge asks how I want to go about the charges and is about to dismiss me when I ask her what happened. she is confused as she looks at the charges and I tell her we were there in court with her that day, and after a moment her face changes as if she has had a realization.

She tells me that they did not know about the charges at the time we went to court, even though that was when we were supposed to be there for them. Aparrently they did not know about the charges at the time because the felonies were filed 7 days after my wreck happened, and these charges were filed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. So the night of my wreck I was charged with a misdeamor and a simple posession charge, and then 7 days later, the Tennessee Highway Patrol filed 2 felony charges. All the judge gave me was a small apology and then we proceeded to court a few months later. I ended up going with judicial conversion per my lawyer, and did a year of probation in exchange for expunging the charges at the end.

I guess the reason I am typing this is to ask, is that how things go? I still feel like i was wrongfully arrested, spent a night in jail for something I didn't do, and was forced to pay at least two times the amount of money this would cost normally. That's part of the reason I feel so bad, I am very fortunate that my parents were able to help bail me out, but that was their money they used to help me and I feel like I didn't deserve to be arrested because the court didn't know about my charges. We specifically asked when we went in June if we were good- if everything was taken care of- and they said yes. They told me I did everything I was supposed to just for me to be arrested two months later and have to go through a whole extra year of court and proceedings. The cherry on top, everytime we had to go to court, the cost was around 800-900 dollars. I have never had a lot of money, neither has my family. A few years after the fact and I am still kicking myself about all of this. Could I have done something different? Is it too late to go back and challenge the court? This is my first post in this subreddit or any subreddit. I just can't stop thinking about how it could've turned out differently.