- Sealing Records Under Arizona’s New LawCriminal records of arrests, even where charges are dismissed, and almost all convictions, even for minor offenses, can and do follow a person for years, impacting professional lives. Arizona as most you are probably aware by now is one of the states that does not generally offer true expungement of most adult criminal convictions and heretofore provided only limited relief for wrongful arrests where charges were dismissed, or where the matter involved only possessory amounts of marijuana
- Pima County Preliminary Hearings and Grand Jury Indictments Felony Criminal ProcedureA preliminary hearing is the ostensible first stop in the system of supposed checks and balances embedded in the concept of criminal prosecution and justice . The thinking is—when a person is charged with a serious crime—any felony—the criminal justice system isn’t going to simply take the word of the police officer[s] doing the arrest (in misdemeanors that’s the case). Because felonies are so serious there should be at the least, a brief hearing after release before a “neutral and detached” magistrate, to kind of check the work of the police officer—to independently review in summary fashion the initial evidence gathered.
- You’ve Been Arrested for a Felony in Pima County: What Happens Next?You or someone you care about was just arrested for a felony in Pima County. So you ask: What comes next? This article will give you a general overview of what happens and what to expect Booking & Initial Appearance In Pima County, all police departments, including Marana, Oro Valley, and Sahuarita, use the central […]
- The Prosecutor Failed to Give Me Evidence: Three Things You Can DoToday we are going to talk about other rights, the rights you have to “prompt” “timely” “disclosure” of basic materials—your police reports, the results of any chemical testing of bodily substances, photographs, videos, audio records and a host of others. Today I’m going to focus on videos, photos, and audio recordings because they are ostensibly readily available (in other words there is no further testing that has to be completed at a crime lab). And three things you can do where the prosecutor has failed to timely disclose important evidence.
- Domestic Violence for Professionals – Part III – Asserting Victims’ Rights to Influence OutcomeToday we’ll talk about how victims may also influence the final outcomes of domestic violence criminal proceedings in Arizona, particularly in relation to a putative offer of “diversion.”
- Domestic Violence for Professionals – Part II – Victims’ Bill of Rights In ArizonaToday we continue, introducing you today to the Arizona Victims’ Bill of Rights. We discuss herein how the Arizona Victims’ Bill of Rights may be in some cases actually helpful to defendants whose victims do not want the defendant prosecuted or restrained. In other words, we discuss how a cooperative victim may use the Arizona Victims’ Bill of Rights to make her voice heard on release conditions, case management, and potentially outcome.
- Domestic Violence for Professionals – Part I – The Arrest, Initial Appearance & ArraignmentIf you are a licensed professional, serve in the military, hold security or access clearances, or need to carry or handle a firearm for your job, domestic violence charges, even if later dismissed, can alter your career trajectory.
- How to Clear an Arrest Record in ArizonaA few blogs back, you and I spoke about clearing your Arizona record of conviction through various machinations, at least setting it aside, or sealing it, and in some happy cannabis cases expunging it completamente.
- Relief from Convictions: Arizona’s New Certificate of Second Chance ProvisionIt is truly, at least in my rudimentary thinking, a remarkable, especially given our state’s political history, and monumental step forward, our legislature pulled along by the national current trending downstream toward criminal justice reform.
- Arizona’s Two New Expungement Laws: Marijuana & Other CrimesSo, we all know at this point that if you have a conviction for simple or felony marijuana simple possession in Arizona, you can now do something about it. July 15, 2021 is when the rush to the courthouse started. If you haven’t heard the news yet, this article might be helpful. But even if you know about the marijuana expungement law, yu probably what you still haven’t heard is that there’s another new provision: In theory, if you have an old Arizona conviction for nearly anything except violent or sexual or some firearms offenses, there’s something you may be able to do about in the next 18 months. It may not be gone completely, but it could be sealed. For you folks, I am pretty sure this article will be helpful. Finally, if you have an arrest record popping up, even though the charges were dismissed, this article might also be a little helpful.