A Minor Misdemeanor Is a Citation
ORC 2935.26 — the officer shall not arrest, with four exceptions
A minor misdemeanor is the bottom rung of the Ohio code and it carries no jail term at all, only a fine. Section 2935.26 goes one step further than that. Where an officer is otherwise authorized to arrest somebody for a minor misdemeanor, the section says the officer shall not arrest, but shall issue a citation. The default is not discretion. It is a citation.
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The citation is its own deadline. The section requires it to carry an order to appear at a stated time and place, a notice that the person may instead, within seven days after it was issued, sign the guilty plea and waiver on it and pay the fine and costs at the clerk's office or by mail, and a notice that the person may be arrested for doing neither. For a traffic citation, where a person holding an Ohio license neither appears nor pays, the court declares the license forfeited; thirty days after that the registrar suspends it and orders it surrendered within forty eight hours, and the forfeiture ends when the person appears to answer the charge.
- The offender requires medical care or is unable to provide for the offender's own safety.
- The offender cannot or will not offer satisfactory evidence of the offender's identity.
- The offender refuses to sign the citation.
- The offender was previously issued a citation for the same misdemeanor and failed either to appear at the time and place stated in it or to comply with the pay in advance route in division (C).
Two of the four exceptions are about what the person does at the roadside. Identity and the signature are the two the person in the encounter is standing inside of, and they are the two that turn a citation into an arrest by the section's own terms. That is a description of the statute rather than a recommendation about either one. What the statute does not contain is any exception for attitude, for arguing, or for asking why.
The citation itself is a document with required contents, and the pay in advance route is written into the same section. A person issued one may, at the time and place stated, plead guilty and pay the fine rather than appear, which is what division (C) is. The next section carries the consequences of doing neither, including forfeiture of a deposit and, after a supplemental citation has gone unanswered, a summons or a warrant.
Paying it is a guilty plea. The route in division (C) is not a fee for making the ticket go away. It is a plea of guilty entered by paying, which produces a conviction on the offense charged the same as standing in front of a judge and saying the word would. Whether that matters depends entirely on the offense and on what else is on the record.
“Is this a minor misdemeanor? I am asking because section 2935.26 says a citation rather than an arrest.”
Which offenses are minor misdemeanors is a question about the specific section charged, and a municipal ordinance can be written differently from the state offense it resembles. Whether an arrest fell inside one of the four exceptions is a fact question a court answers. A licensed Ohio attorney is who reads a particular charge and a particular arrest.
Sources for this section (4)
- ORC 2935.26 — Minor misdemeanor citation issued by an officer
- ORC 2935.27 — Procedure after a minor misdemeanor citation is issued
- ORC 2921.29 — Failure to disclose one's personal information
- ORC 2901.02 — Classification of offenses
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.