Brown & Little, P.L.C. » Arizona Cases
Felony Flight
In Arizona, a driver who “willfully flees” or “attempts to elude” a pursuing official law enforcement vehicle using an audible signal and lights is guilty of a class 5 felony. The only in-depth analysis of what “willfully flees” and “attempts to elude” mean came in a 1993 opinion from the Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division One. In State v. Fogarty, an officer tried to stop the defendant, who had been passing other traffic in a forty-miles-per-hour zone. The officer thought the defendant was going about fifty miles-per-hour and caught up with him at a red light. The light turned green, and the defendant drove ahead at about forty-five miles per hour. The officer turned on his flashing red lights, and after the defendant failed to stop … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, Arizona Statutes
Juror Questions
Every once in a while I come across a ruling that’s so unfair I can hardly believe what I’m reading. State v. Detrich, a 1997 Arizona Supreme Court case, contains one of those rulings. The defendant argued that the trial court erred in refusing to use his proposed jury questionnaire, which included questions about jurors’ racial attitudes, biases, and prejudices. The Court ruled against the defendant because he did not show that the trial judge’s failure to submit his questionnaire to the jury “resulted in a biased jury or rendered his trial fundamentally unfair.” The Court claimed the defendant offered no evidence of bias or prejudice of the jurors. Although the defendant argued there was no way of knowing whether they might have had some kind of racial animus … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases
Actual Control (Again)
Recently, I was surprised when Division Two looked at an issue very close to (if not the same as) something I previously discussed in a post. The issue in State v. Zaragoza was “actual control,” and most of the commentary I’ve read seems to claim that the opinion narrows the term significantly. Here it is. Although I have no doubt that it’s a step in the right direction and may well assist me in future motions, I am skeptical about how positive an effect the opinion is likely to have. Like any appellate opinion, it can be narrowed by its facts. The time line isn’t entirely clear to me, but I think the officer was on top of things as soon as the defendant got in the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, DUI
Can you get a DUI in a car that doesn't work?
A case that addressed that question, State v. Larriva, cited out-of-state authority for the proposition that “the inoperability of the vehicle does not preclude a finding of actual physical control,” later concluding “that the operability of the vehicle is only tangentially relevant to the determination of actual physical control.” In Larriva, the defendant was stuck on a curb and couldn’t move his car. However, Larriva was later questioned in State v. Dawley, where the court stated in a footnote that “the facts on which we based our decision in Larriva would support a conviction on a theory of driving as shown by circumstantial evidence, as suggested by the special concurrence in that case, not on a theory of actual physical control.” Dawley was dealing with jury instructions, and the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, DUI
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