Diversion is the outcome most people facing a first felony in Maricopa County actually want and do not know to ask for. Complete the program, and the prosecutor dismisses the case with prejudice — meaning it is over and cannot be refiled. No conviction. No plea. No felony on the record.
Two things about diversion are worth understanding before anything else on this page.
First: there is no right to diversion. A.R.S. § 11-365 gives the county attorney “sole discretion” to decide whether to divert or defer prosecution. A judge cannot order it. It is asked for, and it is granted or refused by the prosecutor’s office.
Second: the window is short and it closes at arraignment. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office states in its own Felony Diversion Program materials that offers are made before arraignment only. For a defendant in custody, arraignment happens within ten days of the charging document being filed. That is the whole window.
If you have searched this topic, you have almost certainly read about TASC — the Treatment Assessment Screening Center — described as the Maricopa County drug diversion program.
TASC permanently ceased all operations on August 28, 2020. Its own website says so. It has been gone for nearly six years.
A large number of well-ranked Arizona law firm pages still describe TASC as a live program you can enroll in, sometimes with a phone number and a fee schedule. Those pages are years out of date. What replaced TASC is the Maricopa County Attorney’s Felony Diversion Program, which launched May 18, 2020, consolidating the former Drug Diversion Program and Felony Pretrial Intervention Program. The treatment provider is SAGE Counseling, Inc.
The county attorney currently operates eleven diversion programs:
Successful completion of the felony programs results in dismissal with prejudice.
Eligibility runs on two separate screens. The offense has to qualify, and the person has to qualify. Failing either one ends it.
| Excluded | Note |
|---|---|
| DUI | Including aggravated DUI. See our DUI defense page for what is available instead. |
| Robbery | All degrees |
| Arson | |
| Sexual offenses (Title 13, ch. 14) | See sex crime charges |
| Child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children | |
| Cases involving firearm use | |
| Cases involving significant physical injury | |
| Most domestic violence cases | Separate DV-specific programs exist — see below |
| Assaults on first responders under § 13-1204(A)(8) and (A)(9)(c) | See assault charges |
This is where most otherwise-eligible cases fall out, and it is the list defense counsel needs to run before promising anyone anything:
That second item does a lot of work. A single old felony — even a class 6 from years ago, even one that was set aside — generally ends felony diversion eligibility. If that describes your situation, the strategy shifts to something else, and it shifts early.
The single most-repeated piece of outdated information about Maricopa County diversion, after TASC itself, is the fee. The old $630 participation fee was eliminated effective January 1, 2020. The Felony Diversion Program currently carries no participation fee, and AHCCCS may cover the treatment component for participants who are enrolled.
Restitution is separate from a program fee and is still owed. The program caps eligible restitution at $2,000, with fifty percent due within the first thirty days.
On duration: the county attorney’s published policy describes ten treatment tracks assigned by assessed risk level, ranging from roughly ten sessions at the low end to fifty at the high end, with prosecution suspended for up to two years while a participant completes the program. The office does not publish a fixed program length in months, and anyone who quotes you one is estimating. The realistic answer for any specific person depends on the track they are assessed into.
Three separate rules stack on top of each other, and together they produce a window that most people miss without meaning to.
One. Felony Diversion Program offers are made before arraignment only.
Two. Under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 14.2, arraignment happens within ten days after the charging document is filed if the defendant is in custody, or thirty days if not.
Three. The county attorney revised its prosecution policy in August 2025 so that early disposition offers are not held open past arraignment, every offer carries a stated expiration date, and there is an express presumption that any offer made after a rejected or expired one will be harsher.
Put together: for someone sitting in custody, the best available resolution in the case can appear and disappear inside ten days — often before the family has finished arranging bond, and almost always before anyone has thought of the word “diversion.”
This is the practical reason defense counsel is worth having in week one rather than month two. Not because of anything dramatic in a courtroom, but because someone has to ask for the diversion referral while asking is still possible. Our page on what happens after an arrest lays out the full timeline.
Drug charges have more off-ramps than any other category, and they are frequently confused with one another.
Diversion resolves the case without a conviction, if the prosecutor offers it.
Proposition 200 — A.R.S. § 13-901.01 is not diversion. It is a sentencing rule. A person convicted of personal possession or use of a controlled substance or paraphernalia is eligible for probation, and the court must require drug treatment or education. A conviction still enters. Section 13-901.01(H) excludes anyone with three prior personal-possession convictions, anyone who refuses treatment as a probation term or rejects probation, and — importantly — any offense involving methamphetamine. Section 13-901.01(B) also excludes a person convicted of or indicted for a violent crime, and (C) confirms that “personal possession or use” does not reach possession for sale, production, manufacturing, or transportation for sale.
Drug court is a specialized Superior Court calendar combining judicial supervision with treatment, authorized in A.R.S. § 13-3422. Maricopa County operates one. Its program length, phase structure, cost, and written eligibility criteria are not published anywhere by the court, so this page will not invent them — the honest answer is that admission and terms are worked out case by case with the assigned division.
For how the underlying charges themselves work, see our drug charge defense page.
Most domestic violence cases are excluded from the general Felony Diversion Program, but two DV-specific programs exist: Domestic Violence Excessive Response (DVER) and a Domestic Violence Diversion program in the justice courts. Eligibility for both is narrow and prosecutor-driven, and victim input carries real weight.
DV cases also carry consequences that a dismissal does not automatically undo — a no-contact order entered at the initial appearance stays in force until a judge lifts it, and federal firearm consequences attach to convictions rather than arrests. See domestic violence charges.
The county attorney prosecutes felonies. Misdemeanors filed inside a city’s limits are prosecuted by that city’s prosecutor, and each city runs its own diversion programs on its own criteria.
The Phoenix City Prosecutor’s Office lists six diversion categories — domestic violence, anger management, cognitive skills, alcohol possession, shoplifting and theft, and prostitution or solicitation — alongside Veterans Court, Behavioral Health Court, and Community Court. Roughly 1,600 defendants complete a Phoenix program each year. Eligibility rules, fees, and program lengths are not published.
Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale, and the other Valley cities each maintain their own programs with their own rules. Do not assume what applies in one court applies in another. If a case is in a city court, the question to ask is what that prosecutor offers.
Diversion suspends the prosecution; it does not end it. A participant who is terminated from the program returns to the criminal case where it left off, and the State proceeds. Terminations usually come from missed sessions, positive tests, new charges, or non-payment of restitution — and the first two are the common ones.
The practical implication is that diversion should be entered with a clear-eyed view of whether the person can actually complete it. Enrolling in a fifty-session track with no transportation and no plan is not a favor to anyone. A candid conversation at the front end is worth more than an optimistic one.
No. TASC permanently ceased operations on August 28, 2020. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Felony Diversion Program replaced it, with SAGE Counseling as the treatment provider. Any page describing TASC as a current option is out of date.
No. Successful completion of a Maricopa County felony diversion program results in dismissal of the charges with prejudice. There is no conviction and no guilty plea entered.
There is no participation fee. The former $630 fee was eliminated effective January 1, 2020, and AHCCCS may cover the treatment component for enrolled participants. Restitution is separate and still owed, capped at $2,000 for program eligibility, with half due in the first thirty days.
No. DUI is expressly excluded from the Felony Diversion Program, and that includes aggravated DUI. Other resolutions may be available depending on the facts, but diversion is not one of them.
Generally yes. Any historical prior felony conviction is a disqualifier, with one narrow exception for an aggravated DUI more than five years old. This is the disqualifier that removes the largest number of otherwise-eligible people.
No. A.R.S. § 11-365 gives the county attorney sole discretion over whether to divert or defer prosecution. There is no right to diversion and a court cannot compel it.
Before arraignment. The county attorney states that Felony Diversion Program offers are made before arraignment only, and arraignment occurs within ten days of the charging document being filed for a defendant in custody. The window is genuinely that short.
The prosecution resumes. Diversion suspends the case rather than ending it, so a participant who is terminated returns to the criminal case and the State proceeds on the original charges.
If you or someone in your family has been arrested on a felony in Maricopa County and has no prior felony record, diversion may be the best outcome available — and it may only be available for the next several days. Nova Law Group can look at the charge, run the eligibility screens, and make the request to the prosecutor while the window is open.
Call (480) 405-6767 or request a free consultation. If there is a court date this week, call.
This page is general information about Arizona diversion programs, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Diversion is discretionary with the prosecuting agency, program terms and eligibility criteria change without public notice, and city prosecutors operate independently of the county attorney. No attorney can guarantee admission to any program or any particular result in any case. Talk to a lawyer about your own situation.
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