» Entries tagged with "dangerous offense"
No Pie For You
Bad manners aside, sitting at the dinner table and yelling “bring me some pie!” at your significant other while pounding your fists is probably not a criminal offense. Should you happen to have a knife in one hand while you pound your fists, however, you may be in big trouble. Significant others don’t like angry demands for pie, I’m told, and as a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve met quite a few people whose significant others love calling the police for the most trivial things. The story the 911 operator hears will invariably be embellished, and in my example, the angry companion would probably claim you somehow threatened her with the knife. She would say how scared she was. When officers arrive and haul you off to jail, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Statutes, Prosecutors
The Price of Being Right
Arizona’s Revised Statutes are filled with mandatory sentencing provisions. For instance, A.R.S. 13-703 says that a repetitive offender in “category three,” someone who has been convicted of a felony and has two or more historical prior felony convictions, “shall be sentenced” within certain sentencing ranges. The range for a category three offender convicted of a class 2 felony is 10.5 years to 35 years. A.R.S. 13-704 contains another mandatory sentencing scheme. A “dangerous offense” is one “involving the discharge, use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument or the intentional or knowing infliction of serious physical injury on another person.” If someone is convicted of a “dangerous” class 2 felony, the statute says that he or she “shall be sentenced” to a term of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Statutes
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