Someone you care about was arrested in Maricopa County, or you were. Right now the question is not what the sentence might be two years from now. The question is what happens tonight, what happens tomorrow morning, and what you are supposed to do in the meantime.
This page walks through the Arizona criminal process in order, from the moment of arrest through trial, with the actual deadlines that govern each step. Those deadlines come from the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Arizona Revised Statutes, not from summaries. That matters, because several widely repeated numbers on Arizona legal websites are wrong, and one of them is published by a government office. We flag those below.
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After an arrest, the person is transported to a jail facility and booked. In Maricopa County, adults arrested on felony charges and most misdemeanors are booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix. Booking is administrative — fingerprints, photograph, property inventory, medical screening. Nothing about guilt or innocence is decided there.
The first court proceeding is the initial appearance, and it happens fast. Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 4.1 is explicit: if the initial appearance does not occur within 24 hours after arrest, the arrested person must be released from custody. Maricopa County runs a dedicated Initial Appearance Court that operates seven days a week to meet this deadline.
Rule 4.2 governs what actually happens at the initial appearance. In a proceeding that often takes only a few minutes, the judge:
One further deadline attaches here: if no formal charging document is filed within 48 hours of the initial appearance, release is required. An arrest is not a charge. Police arrest; prosecutors charge. The two are separate decisions made by separate offices, and the second one does not always follow the first.
The release decision at the initial appearance is the single most consequential thing that happens in the first day, and it is the moment where having a lawyer already involved changes outcomes most visibly. A judge setting release conditions is weighing two things: whether the person will come back to court, and whether releasing them poses a risk to any other person or to the community.
The realistic options a judge chooses among include:
Judges routinely add case-specific conditions on top of the release type — no contact with a named person, no alcohol, surrender of passports or firearms, or a geographic restriction. In domestic violence cases in particular, a no-contact order imposed at the initial appearance takes effect immediately and violating it is a separate criminal offense, even if the protected person invites the contact. See our page on domestic violence charges for how that plays out.
A narrow category of the most serious offenses is non-bondable under the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. § 13-3961, meaning no amount of money secures release. Outside that category, the amount and type of release is argued, and it is argued at a hearing that happens whether or not a defense lawyer is present. Being present is better.
Release conditions can also be revisited. If conditions were set before anyone told the court about the person’s job, family, treatment history, or ties to the community, a motion to modify release conditions is the mechanism for fixing that.
In Arizona, a felony case can only proceed to trial if a neutral body has found probable cause. There are two roads to that finding, and the prosecutor chooses which one to take.
The preliminary hearing. This is an open, adversarial hearing before a magistrate. The State calls witnesses, the defense can cross-examine them, and the judge decides whether probable cause exists. Rule 5.1 sets the deadline in plain terms: the hearing must commence no later than 10 days after the initial appearance if the defendant is in custody, or 20 days if the defendant is not in custody.
Two details about that deadline are commonly misstated. First, the clock runs from the initial appearance, not from the arrest. Second, if the State blows the deadline, the remedy is release from custody — it is not dismissal of the charges.
The grand jury. A grand jury is a panel of at least nine citizens who hear the State’s evidence in a closed proceeding. The defendant is usually not present, defense counsel is not present, and there is no cross-examination. If the grand jury returns an indictment, the case proceeds. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office states that when an indictment is obtained before the preliminary hearing, the preliminary hearing is vacated.
In practice, many Maricopa County felony cases are indicted by a grand jury rather than resolved through a preliminary hearing. Anyone who tells you a specific percentage is guessing — no official statistics are published.
Arraignment is where the defendant formally enters a plea. Under Rule 14.2, arraignment occurs within 10 days after the charging document is filed if the defendant is in custody, or 30 days if not in custody. If the initial appearance happened in the trial court, the two proceedings can be combined.
Note that the county attorney’s public-facing page states only the ten-day figure and omits the thirty-day alternative for out-of-custody defendants. The rule is the rule.
After arraignment, the case moves on a schedule:
| Stage | When | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Initial appearance | Within 24 hours of arrest | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 4.1 |
| Charging document filed | Within 48 hours of the initial appearance | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 4.1 |
| Preliminary hearing | 10 days after IA in custody; 20 days out of custody | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 5.1 |
| Arraignment | 10 days after charging in custody; 30 days out of custody | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 14.2 |
| Initial pretrial conference | Within 45 days after arraignment | Maricopa County Attorney’s Office |
| Final trial management conference | 7 days before trial | Maricopa County Attorney’s Office |
| Trial — in custody | 150 days from arraignment | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 8.2 |
| Trial — released | 180 days from arraignment | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 8.2 |
| Trial — complex case | 270 days | Ariz. R. Crim. P. 8.2 |
A correction worth making explicitly, because it appears on a government website: the county attorney’s public page describes the speedy-trial limits as 120 days and 150 days running from the initial appearance. Rule 8.2 sets 150 days and 180 days running from arraignment. Both the numbers and the trigger event are different. Cite the rule.
Here is the part of the timeline almost nobody explains, and it is the part where waiting costs the most.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office states in its Felony Diversion Program materials that diversion offers are made before arraignment only. Separately, the office revised its prosecution policy in August 2025 so that early disposition offers are not held open past arraignment, every offer carries a specific expiration date, and there is a stated presumption that any offer following a rejected or expired offer will be harsher.
Now put that next to Rule 14.2. For someone in custody, arraignment happens within ten days of the charging document being filed. Which means the entire window for the best available outcome in a diverting-eligible case can open and close inside ten days — before most families have finished figuring out how to post bond.
This is the strongest practical argument for getting a defense lawyer involved in the first days rather than the first month. Read more on our page about diversion programs in Maricopa County.
Maricopa County has three tiers of trial court, and where a case lands depends on what is charged.
| Court | Handles |
|---|---|
| Superior Court | All felonies, including aggravated DUI. Also hears felony sentencing and probation violation proceedings. |
| Justice courts (26 precincts countywide) | Misdemeanors punishable by no more than a $2,500 fine or six months in jail, plus felony proceedings through the preliminary examination stage. A.R.S. § 22-301. |
| Municipal (city) courts | City ordinance violations, plus concurrent jurisdiction with justice courts over state-law violations inside city limits. A.R.S. § 22-402. This is why misdemeanor DUI is heard in Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, and Glendale city courts. |
The court matters more than people expect. Prosecutors, plea practices, diversion availability, and even the pace of a docket vary meaningfully between a city court and Superior Court, and between one justice precinct and another.
Short, blunt, and in order of how much difference each one makes.
Stop talking about the case. Not to police, not to the alleged victim, not on the jail phone. Calls from Arizona jails are recorded and prosecutors listen to them. The most damaging evidence in a large share of cases is something the defendant said after the arrest, not before it.
Say the two sentences that end an interrogation. “I am invoking my right to remain silent. I want a lawyer.” Say both. Being silent alone is not enough; the request for counsel is what legally stops the questioning. Then actually stop talking.
Do not consent to searches. Not the phone, not the car, not the house. If officers have a warrant they do not need permission. Declining a search is not evidence of guilt and cannot be used against you as such.
Do not contact the alleged victim. If a no-contact condition is in place, a single text message is a new criminal charge, and it is the easiest charge in the world for the State to prove.
Write down everything while it is fresh. Times, locations, who was present, what officers said, what was seized, whether you were read your rights and at what point. Memory degrades within days and this record has real value later.
Preserve evidence that helps you. Photographs, receipts, texts, dashcam or doorbell footage, the names of witnesses. Surveillance video is frequently overwritten in as little as a week — a preservation letter sent early is sometimes the entire case.
Call a defense lawyer before the arraignment, not after. See the section above on why.
Roughly two percent of Maricopa County criminal cases reach a jury verdict. The rest end in a plea agreement, a dismissal, a diversion completion, or a suppression ruling that guts the State’s case before trial.
That statistic is often used to argue that trial does not matter. It is exactly backwards. Plea offers are priced against the risk the prosecutor believes they are carrying. A defense lawyer who files motions, takes depositions, and is credibly prepared to try the case is negotiating from a different position than one who is not — and the offer reflects it. The willingness to go to trial has value in every case, including the ones that never get there.
Where a case does go to trial, the verdict must be unanimous, and sentencing is typically set at least thirty days after the verdict or the change of plea.
If a person cannot afford a lawyer, one is appointed at the initial appearance. Arizona’s public defenders include some genuinely excellent trial lawyers, and nothing on this page should be read as saying otherwise. The structural problem is caseload: appointed counsel in a large county carries a docket measured in the hundreds, which limits how many hours any single case can receive regardless of the lawyer’s ability.
The practical difference retained counsel buys is time and timing — someone who can be reached before the arraignment, who can appear at a release-conditions hearing on short notice, who can send a preservation letter this week, and who can push for a diversion referral inside the window while it is still open.
No. Police make arrests; prosecutors decide whether to file charges. Cases are declined, and cases are filed weeks later on conduct where no arrest was ever made. If no charging document is filed within 48 hours of the initial appearance, release from custody is required — but that release does not mean the prosecutor has permanently declined to charge.
Within 24 hours. Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 4.1 requires immediate release if the initial appearance has not occurred within that window, and Maricopa County operates a dedicated Initial Appearance Court to meet the deadline every day of the week.
Almost never without a lawyer present, and the more innocent the explanation feels, the more true that is. Detectives conduct interviews to build a case, not to close one. Anything said can be used; nothing said can be unsaid; and a statement that seems harmless can lock in a fact the defense would otherwise be able to contest.
A preliminary hearing is an open, adversarial proceeding before a judge where the defense can cross-examine the State’s witnesses. A grand jury is a closed proceeding before at least nine citizens where the defense is generally not present and there is no cross-examination. The prosecutor chooses which route to take, and an indictment obtained before the preliminary hearing vacates that hearing.
Yes. Release conditions are not fixed for the life of the case. A motion to modify release conditions can be filed when there is information the court did not have at the initial appearance — employment, treatment enrollment, family responsibilities, community ties, or a third party willing to take responsibility for supervision.
Rule 8.2 sets outer limits of 150 days from arraignment for a defendant in custody and 180 days for a defendant who has been released, with 270 days available for complex cases. Those limits are frequently extended by agreement when the defense needs time for expert review, disclosure, or motion practice, and waiving time is often the right strategic call rather than a delay.
No. Most of the defense work in a criminal case happens after arraignment. What passes is the narrow pre-arraignment window for diversion and for the earliest plea offers — which is a reason to move quickly, not a reason to stop.
Nova Law Group defends people charged with crimes throughout Maricopa County — in Superior Court, in the justice courts, and in the city courts of Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, and Glendale. Consultations are free and confidential.
Call (480) 405-6767 or request a confidential consultation. If someone is in custody right now, call — do not wait for a form.
This page is general information about Arizona criminal procedure, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and procedures vary by court, by charge, and by the specific posture of a case, and rules and statutes change. No attorney can guarantee any particular result in any case. Talk to a lawyer about your own situation before acting on anything here.
Related pages: diversion programs covers the option that has to be raised before arraignment, and record sealing and set-asides covers what can be done about the record afterward. For the charge itself, start at the criminal defense hub or go straight to felony or misdemeanor defense.
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