Central Arraignment Courthouse

Central Arraignment Courthouse at 429 Bauchet Street is not a general-purpose courthouse — it exists for one stage of a criminal case: the first appearance. Defendants booked into the downtown Los Angeles jail complex are brought here to be arraigned, to have counsel appointed if they don’t have their own, to enter a plea, and to have bail addressed by a judicial officer for the first time.

The location is the whole point. The courthouse sits inside the same Bauchet Street corridor as Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Men’s Central Jail, and the Inmate Reception Center — the county’s downtown intake spine. In-custody defendants move a short distance rather than being transported across the county, which is what makes a high-volume daily arraignment calendar possible at all.

For families, the practical consequence is that Central Arraignment is almost always the courthouse named on the paperwork after a downtown arrest — and almost never the courthouse where the case is actually resolved. Downtown criminal matters move on to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on West Temple Street once past the first appearance. Treating Central Arraignment as “the court handling the case” is one of the most common mix-ups families make, and one of the easiest to correct with one phone call.

California law — Penal Code §825 — requires that anyone arrested be taken before a magistrate without unnecessary delay, and in any event within 48 hours of arrest, excluding Sundays and holidays. That is the statute behind the “48-hour rule” families hear about, and it is also the law that guarantees an arrested person’s right to visit with an attorney: an officer who willfully denies that visit is guilty of a misdemeanor and owes the person $500 directly, under the same code section.

Nothing about the arraignment stage requires waiting. If bail has already been set by the county schedule at booking, a bond can be posted before the defendant ever reaches this courtroom.