Weapons Charges Lawyer in Chandler, AZ

Arizona's main weapons statute is A.R.S. 13-3102, misconduct involving weapons. It has sixteen paragraphs, every one of which requires that the person acted knowingly, and its classes start at a class 3 misdemeanor and top out at a class 2 felony. In a Chandler case, which paragraph the officer or prosecutor picked tells you who prosecutes and where.

City cases. Misdemeanors from a Chandler Police report go to the City Prosecutor, whose office is at 250 E. Chicago St., and are heard next door at Chandler Municipal Court (200 E. Chicago St.). Misdemeanor paragraphs include carrying a concealed deadly weapon while under 21, giving an inaccurate answer when an officer asks if a concealed deadly weapon is on you, entering a polling place with a deadly weapon on election day, and keeping a weapon after the operator of a public establishment or the sponsor of a public event reasonably asks you to hand it over for storage. If the citation came from DPS or the Sheriff's Office, the misdemeanor can be sent to one of the county's justice courts instead; four of them share a building at 201 E. Chicago Street. Go where the citation tells you.

County cases. A prohibited possessor who has a deadly weapon faces a class 4 felony. So does anyone possessing a prohibited weapon, or having a deadly weapon while committing a felony drug offense. Carrying concealed in furtherance of a felony, and defacing a weapon or knowingly possessing a defaced one, are class 6 felonies. Felonies are outside the City Prosecutor's reach. Most are charged by the County Attorney for Maricopa County; the Arizona Attorney General's Office charges some, usually where a state agency investigated, more than one county is involved or the county attorney sent the matter over. We handle these matters whichever office brought the charge. Felonies reach Superior Court by indictment or preliminary hearing, with no justice court step, and are heard downtown at the South Court Tower, 175 W. Madison St., or the Central Court Building, 201 W. Jefferson St. Confirm the building on your current notice.

Federal cases. Federal law, at 18 U.S.C. 922(g), keeps its own list of people who may not have firearms or ammunition. It resembles Arizona's list without matching it. State and federal prosecutors make separate decisions, so one firearm found in Chandler can produce a state prosecution, a federal one, or the two together. Nova Law Group appears in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

Arrest or citation. A person booked into the county jail on a felony weapons count has the initial appearance at the county's Initial Appearance Court, 2670 S. 28th Dr., in Phoenix. Rule 4.1 caps the wait for that hearing at 24 hours from arrest, with release as the consequence of missing it. A felony defendant without the means to hire a lawyer gets an appointed one, though by the time that lawyer is assigned, officers have often already asked whose gun it was and what is on your record. Other Chandler weapons cases never involve a booking. The officer writes a citation with a court date, or keeps the firearm and sends a report to a prosecutor for a later decision.

The weapon itself. A firearm taken by Chandler officers is logged at 576 W. Pecos Rd. by the department's Property and Evidence staff, and release is by appointment only. The department's Forensic Services Section is, in its own words, "an internationally accredited forensic testing laboratory." The work it publishes includes latent print processing and crime scene response. Firearms examination is not on that list, so if a gun in your case was test fired or examined, the report will show who did it.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. Any felony conviction makes a person a prohibited possessor under Arizona law until firearm rights are restored. Restoration is a judge's decision under A.R.S. 13-910, which bars it after a dangerous offense and imposes a ten-year wait after a serious offense. A person who is not a U.S. citizen should get immigration advice before any plea.

In Superior Court. A.R.S. 13-604 allows misdemeanor treatment only for class 6 felonies, which leaves a class 4 prohibited possessor count outside it. For a class 6 count with no dangerous offense involved, a judge may enter a class 1 misdemeanor or leave the offense undesignated during probation, unless the person has two or more prior felony convictions.