What to Expect in Your Arizona Misdemeanor Criminal Case
This article contains general information which may not apply to your specific case. Accordingly, you should always ask our office or the court what to expect in your case rather than relying on the general information provided here.
Overview
This article provides an overview of what to expect when The 928 Law Firm represents you in a misdemeanor case. We represent clients in numerous courts throughout Arizona; this article does not provide specific advice for any particular court, it does provide general information that will be useful to most of our clients who have hired us for criminal cases.
Fingerprinting Requirements
Under Arizona law and court rules, a person arrested, charged, or convicted for any of the following offenses must submit fingerprints to the State of Arizona:
Felony offenses
Domestic violence offenses as defined in A.R.S. § 13-3601
Sexual offenses contained in A.R.S. Title 13, Chapter 14
DUI (driving under the influence) offenses contained in A.R.S. Title 28, Chapter 4
Any offense which is disqualifying for the licensing of a private investigator or private investigation agency pursuant to A.R.S. § 32-2422(A)(4) or A.R.S. § 32-2441(4), or for the licensing of a security guard or security guard agency pursuant to A.R.S. § 32-2612(A)(4) or A.R.S. § 32-2622(A)(4)
Any offense which is disqualifying for a fingerprint clearance card pursuant to A.R.S. § 41-1758.03(B)-(C) or A.R.S. § 41-1758.07(B)-(C)
For less serious case types not included in the list above, fingerprinting is not required.
Typically one or more of the court documents in your case will state whether these fingerprinting requirements apply to your case. If you need help complying with this requirement or determining whether it applies to you, let us know and we can help.
Arraignment
In Arizona misdemeanor cases, an arraignment (sometimes called an “initial appearance”) is typically the first court date scheduled to occur. The purpose of an arraignment is to inform the accused of the charges against them and the maximum jail time and court fines allowed by Arizona law, and to confirm that the accused wishes to enter a “not guilty” plea to start the case. After the not-guilty plea is entered, the prosecutor and defense typically spend the following several weeks or months exchanging evidence in their possession and negotiating a potential plea agreement.
The arraignment can be helpful to an unrepresented person, but when you hire a lawyer to represent you, the arraignment doesn’t serve much purpose since your lawyer can tell you the charges and maximum potential punishments that you are facing.
When a client hires our firm for representation in a misdemeanor case that has not had an arraignment yet, the first thing we usually do is file a Notice of Appearance and Written Entry of Not Guilty Plea, which does the following:
Informs the court that we are representing you in the case, and that all correspondence from the court and the prosecutor should be sent to our firm rather than to you directly. (Note: When we receive correspondence from the court or prosecutor, we typically share it with our client through our client portal as soon as possible after we receive it.)
Informs the court that you are entering a “not guilty” plea to the charges.
Asks the court to vacate (cancel) the arraignment, and instead schedule a pretrial conference for a later date.
Although courts usually grant our request to vacate the arraignment, it’s important to assume that we need to attend all court dates (in person, unless a telephonic or virtual appearance is allowed) until you receive notice – preferably in writing – that you do not need to attend.
If the court notifies us that the arraignment has been vacated, we typically (1) share the court order vacating the arraignment with our client through our client portal and (2) send our client a text message notifying them of the court order and any future court dates that have been set.
Before the First Pretrial Conference
After an arraignment is conducted or vacated, the court typically schedules a pretrial conference.
Before the first pretrial conference, the following things often happen:
The defense lawyer asks the court to allow them and/or their client to appear by phone or video-conference for any pretrial conferences (if the court isn’t already planning to conduct all pretrial conferences by phone or video conference). In our experience, the courts usually grant these requests, and our clients are rarely required to attend hearings in-person.
The defense lawyer asks the prosecutor to share any evidence that they have against the accused, such as police reports, body camera footage, and contact information for any witnesses.
The prosecutor gives the evidence to the defense lawyer.
What to Expect on the Day of a Pretrial Conference
The purpose of a pretrial conference is for the prosecutor and the defense (and sometimes the court) to discuss the status of the case and what should happen next. In other words, most pretrial conferences are just what the name says – a conference or discussion about the status of the case.
There is no specific number or frequency of pretrial conferences that are conducted in misdemeanor cases, but it’s common for there to be several pretrial conferences throughout a case, with each one usually happening about a month after the previous one.
Many courts routinely schedule and conduct pretrial conferences with a “rolling docket,” which means that the court (1) schedules a large number of different cases to start at the same time, (2) blocks out several hours to conduct the pretrial conferences, and (3) conducts the pretrial conference one-at-a-time in whichever sequence makes sense that day.
Additionally, some pretrial conferences happen with the judge and prosecutor in-person, by phone, or by video-conferencing (e.g. Zoom), while other pretrial conferences may just involve the defense lawyer and prosecutor exchanging emails or having a brief phone call about the status of the case and any issues such as evidence and plea negotiations. If The 928 Law Firm is representing you in an upcoming pretrial conference, you can always text us and ask whether we expect you to need to call in for your pretrial conference, or if your lawyer expects to be able to handle it without you.
Between Pretrial Conferences
After at least one pretrial conference has been held, different cases may have different things happening depending on the facts and evidence of the case, our client’s objectives, and our legal strategy, but things that may happen after the first pretrial conference include:
The defense lawyer reviews the evidence received from the prosecutor.
The defense lawyer discusses the received evidence with the client, if there’s anything in the evidence that was previously unknown or uncertain.
The defense lawyer asks their client to provide any documents or evidence in their possession that we may want to provide to the prosecutor and potentially use in court later.
The defense lawyer emails the prosecutor attempting to persuade them to agree to a more lenient case outcome.
The defense lawyer files something with the court asking it to exclude evidence, if the lawyer believes there is a legal basis for such exclusion.
The defense lawyer works on ancillary actions which arose from the misdemeanor charges, such as proceedings by the Arizona Department of Transportation to suspend a person’s driver’s license after a DUI arrest.
The defense lawyer and the prosecutor enter “plea negotiations,” wherein the two sides attempt to reach an agreement in which the accused may admit guilt to one or more charges in exchange for receiving an agreed-upon sentence.
The defense and prosecutor use a pretrial conference as a “change of plea hearing,” where the defense and the prosecutor present their agreement to the court and ask the judge to accept the agreement and make it a final judgment of the court.