» Entries tagged with "felony flight"

Our Delicate Sensibilities

There were two big car chases yesterday. One in Los Angeles ended in an arrest: One near Phoenix…not so much: The suspect in Arizona committed suicide, and the news apparently regrets the fact it didn’t cut before airing the dirty deed on live television. I’d rather not watch that stuff, but I’d rather not watch the news either. The people of Texas killed a guy earlier this week. Five days earlier, they killed another. The people of Ohio killed one that very same day. Texas also killed a guy in August, but they weren’t alone. Oklahoma did too. More importantly, so did Arizona. The good people of our fair state pumped a man full of drugs until he died. The demure little flowers whose delicate sensibilities … Read entire article »

Filed under: Death Penalty, News

It's All Illegal

Years ago, I thought I knew what was illegal and what was not. Now, I know that what I once thought I knew may in fact be unknowable. Take hindering prosecution, for instance. In Arizona, a person commits the offense of hindering prosecution if, with the intent to hinder the prosecution of another person for any felony, the person renders assistance to the other person. A person can render assistance by knowingly preventing by means of deception anyone from performing an act that might aid in the prosecution of the other person. I have a client who was in custody last summer, sitting on the chain in court waiting for a hearing. An officer came to court to get a handwriting exemplar from another inmate on the chain, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Government Rants

An Irritating Non-Lesser Included Offense

I recently discussed lesser included offenses. Although Arizona’s practice of looking to the statute instead of the facts is frustrating enough in principle alone, there are some instances where I am particularly bothered by what a defendant can’t get as a lesser included offense. One instance involves felony flight. In an unpublished decision released this past September, Arizona’s Division One Court of Appeals looked at whether someone accused of felony flight could request a lesser included instruction for failure to stop. The felony flight statute applies to a driver who wilfully flees or attempts to elude a police vehicle with lights and sirens, and the failure to stop statute applies to a driver who knowingly fails or refuses to bring his or her vehicle to a stop after … Read entire article »

Filed under: Arizona Cases, Arizona Statutes

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

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