Aggravated DUI Lawyer in Tempe, AZ

One extra fact separates this charge from an ordinary DUI. Under A.R.S. 28-1383, the State pairs a DUI or extreme DUI with one listed circumstance: a license that was suspended, canceled, revoked or refused, or carried a restriction tied to a prior DUI or a 28-1385 suspension; a third violation within 84 months; a passenger younger than fifteen; a court or MVD interlock requirement; or wrong-way driving on a highway. The passenger version is a class 6 felony, and each of the other four is class 4.

Tempe's own prosecutors stop short of felonies. The City Attorney's Criminal Division describes its role as misdemeanor prosecution within the city. Felonies belong to state prosecutors. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office takes most; the Arizona Attorney General's Office takes some, often when the conduct reached past county lines, a state agency investigated, or the county attorney referred the case. We handle these matters whichever office brought the charge.

Off Fifth Street. Indictment by a grand jury, or a judge's ruling after a preliminary hearing, sends a Tempe aggravated DUI to Maricopa County Superior Court, which hears it downtown in the Central Court Building, 201 W. Jefferson St., or the South Court Tower, 175 W. Madison St. Confirm the building on your current notice. In this county, felonies bypass the justice courts.

A city court date on your citation is not the final word. Plenty of these arrests start out as Tempe misdemeanors, because the aggravating fact sometimes appears only later, in an MVD printout or a criminal history. A report the city was handling can then go to the County Attorney's Office for review, and a felony charge can follow. Whatever charging document arrives last identifies the court and the prosecutor; follow that one.

Booked into the county jail on a felony? Then the first appearance takes place at Intake, Transfer and Release, 2670 S. 28th Dr., Phoenix, a county site the Superior Court lists as open around the clock. Rule 4.1 requires that appearance within 24 hours of arrest, or release, and the judge sets release terms and any bond.

Counsel attaches on a felony, so if you qualify and have not hired a lawyer, the court appoints one. The weeks before that first setting are often when the license record, the earlier judgments and the test data are easiest to collect.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. Under A.R.S. 13-904(A), a felony conviction suspends the rights to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury and possess a firearm. After an aggravated DUI conviction, MVD must revoke the driving privilege and may not issue a new license for one year. Employment, professional licensing, housing and immigration can all be affected as well.

The MVD case keeps its own schedule. If you were served an administrative suspension notice, A.R.S. 28-1385(G)(2)(c) still says the request "must be received by the department within thirty days after the date of the notice," whatever is happening in Superior Court.

And the car has a clock too. Tempe's Vehicle Impound Unit puts both aggravated DUI and driving on a revoked license on its 20-day list, and hearings run by appointment at the police substation on Apache Boulevard (details in the FAQ).