Bedford Municipal Court Warrants

The Bedford Municipal Court

Downstairs in Building A at 2000 Forest Ridge Drive, the Bedford Municipal Court is where the city’s fine-only cases land — the speeding and traffic tickets, the code-enforcement notices, and the other Class C charges written inside Bedford. A warrant this court issued can only be lifted by this court, which is why every clean-record path circles back to its docket.

Bedford is the central “B” in the HEB cluster — Hurst, Euless, and Bedford — tucked into northeast Tarrant County between Fort Worth and DFW Airport, and the court’s docket reflects that location: stops along Airport Freeway (Highway 183), Central Drive, and Harwood Road, plus the ordinance and code-compliance citations a built-out Mid-Cities suburb generates. The court’s authority is capped at fine-only offenses — speeding, no insurance, expired registration, red-light and lane violations, city-ordinance and animal-control matters, and similar Class C charges. It cannot hear a felony or a Class A or B misdemeanor; those move to Tarrant County. One thing worth knowing up front: Bedford lies entirely within Tarrant County, so unlike a few North Texas cities there is no second-county wrinkle to untangle — a Bedford warrant is a Tarrant County matter from start to finish. Use the contacts below to confirm a case before you act on it.

The bench is led by Presiding Judge Timothy J. Murphy, and the court’s day-to-day operations run through Court Manager Doug Campbell. It is the presiding judge who calendars the dockets and, once a case is squared away, puts a signature on the order that pulls a warrant back; routine questions and violation inquiries, by contrast, land with the court manager’s office rather than the bench.

The docket here is limited to fine-only business — traffic, city-ordinance, and the rest of the Class C field. Leave one of those cases unanswered and the court has two tools: an alias warrant when a citation is never responded to in the first place, and a capias pro fine once a fine or judgment has been entered and goes unpaid.

How to check for a Bedford warrant

Three reliable ways to confirm a Bedford warrant: enter the citation on TrafficPayment.com (court ID 655), phone the court at (817) 952-2150 during business hours, or let a defense lawyer pull it for you so you know the exposure before you ever stand at the clerk’s counter.

1. Search the City of Bedford portal. Bedford routes its online citation lookup and payment through trafficpayment.com under court ID 655. Enter the citation details to see the case and the balance; a phone-payment line is also published at 1-800-444-1187.
2. Call the Bedford Municipal Court. Court staff at (817) 952-2150 will tell you, during business hours Monday through Friday, whether a citation is real, where the case stands, and whether the court has already fixed a bond amount on it.
3. Have a lawyer check for you. A defense attorney can verify the warrant and the amount owed without tipping your hand, so you walk in already knowing the number and the options.

To sweep other Tarrant-area and North Texas courts at the same time, see our guide on how to find out if you have a warrant.

What warrants the Bedford court issues

Bedford’s court only reaches fine-only cases, so you will never see a felony warrant come out of it. The warrants here flow from unresolved Class C and traffic matters — an alias warrant before a judgment, a capias pro fine after one, or a warrant for a missed setting.

Alias warrant

Signed when you were ticketed in Bedford but never entered a plea or appeared, leaving the citation open on the docket. It exists to force that first response on the underlying charge.

Capias pro fine

Signed after the case is already decided, when an assessed fine or court cost is not paid. The judgment stands, so clearing it turns on satisfying the balance or arranging a substitute the court will approve.

Failure to appear

Triggered by skipping a scheduled Bedford court date. Missing the date can tack a separate failure-to-appear charge onto the original ticket, so one citation quietly becomes two open cases.

The ground rules for all of this come from the chapter the Legislature wrote for municipal courts, Code of Criminal Procedure, Chapter 45.

How to clear a Bedford warrant

Clearing a Bedford warrant runs through a tight set of steps: confirm the citation and the amount, choose how you want to resolve it, let a lawyer arrange a cash bond or a motion to recall where that helps, then close out the ticket on the date the court gives you.

1. Confirm the citation and the amount with the Bedford court. Pull the case, status, and any bond or balance from trafficpayment.com (court ID 655) or by calling (817) 952-2150. Note that the portal cannot process a cash bond, a dismissal fee, an attorney-represented ticket, or a defendant under 18 unless the court pre-approves it — once a warrant is active, those usually go through the court directly.
2. Decide your path: pay in full, post a cash bond to recall the warrant, or request an ability-to-pay hearing under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 45.045. Each route does something different: paying in full extinguishes a fine-only warrant on the spot, a cash bond knocks the warrant down and buys you a fresh court date, and an ability-to-pay hearing puts options like a structured payment plan or community service in front of the judge. The governing rules sit in Code of Criminal Procedure, Chapter 45.
3. Ask a defense lawyer about posting a bond in advance or a motion to recall. Depending on the case, counsel may be able to put up the cash bond before you ever set foot in the building, or file a motion asking the judge to pull the warrant — either way, you come back to the case on a calendared date rather than in the back of a squad car after a stop on Highway 183.
4. Resolve the case on the scheduled date. Knocking out the warrant does not erase the ticket beneath it; that charge is still live, so you show up on the date the court assigns and put the original citation to rest.

For the framework that holds in any Texas court, read how to lift a warrant and bond vs. surrender.

What to expect

For most people a Bedford warrant is paperwork and dollars, not a cell. Clearing it does not make the ticket vanish — that still has to be dealt with — but going in with a plan turns what felt like a looming threat into an ordinary trip to court.

Once a cash bond is posted or the balance is paid and the Bedford warrant comes off, the court generally puts the case back on a setting so the original citation can finally be worked out. What that resolution looks like depends on the facts and your history — a traffic or Class C charge can land on a dismissal after a driving-safety course, deferred disposition, a trimmed fine, or an installment plan. And where the sticking point is genuinely money, the judge is obligated to look at what you can actually afford before nonpayment turns into contempt; Texas builds that safeguard into the ability-to-pay hearing at Art. 45.045 and Art. 45.046. The whole point of moving early is to stop a single Bedford ticket from compounding — into extra failure-to-appear counts, a block on renewing your license at the DPS, or a knock on the door from a Bedford warrant officer, a danger that spikes the moment the Great Texas Warrant Roundup kicks off.

How a lawyer helps with a Bedford warrant

A defense lawyer can verify the Bedford warrant, put a number on the likely cash bond, post it in advance where the court permits, and appear alongside you to close out the citation — trading an open-ended source of stress for a single date on the calendar.

L and L Law Group is a Frisco-based criminal-defense firm led by Co-Founding Partners Reggie London and Njeri London. Because the firm appears throughout the Tarrant County courts and the Mid-Cities municipal benches, it understands how a Bedford city case — and any county case that can grow out of a Bedford arrest — actually moves through the system. On a Bedford file, the work usually runs in that order: pin down the warrant with the court, talk through whether paying, posting a cash bond, or asking for an ability-to-pay hearing is the smarter move, draft a recall motion where the situation calls for one, and stand beside you on the day the citation is wrapped up. This site is an educational resource; when you want hands-on help, the firm can take a Bedford warrant from the first confirmation through to disposition. Learn more at L and L Law Group.

Related

Bedford warrant FAQ

This page is general legal information about Texas law, not legal advice for your specific situation. Statutes and court procedures change; verify current requirements with the relevant court or a licensed Texas attorney. Last reviewed June 22, 2026.