Burglary and Trespass Lawyer in Mesa, AZ

Two prosecutors split this work in Mesa. Misdemeanors from inside city limits belong to the City Prosecutor, whose office is Suite 222 of the courthouse building on 1st Avenue; by that office's own description, felonies from Mesa are prosecuted by the Maricopa County Attorney. Third degree criminal trespass is a class 3 misdemeanor under A.R.S. § 13-1502(C), so a Mesa Police trespass citation generally goes to Mesa Municipal Court. Burglary leaves that building at once: each of its three degrees is a felony. Second and first degree trespass have classes of their own, set out on the statewide page.

Mesa Police built its Trespass Enforcement Program for businesses troubled by trespassing and loitering outside business hours. Apartment complexes and HOAs can enroll shared spaces such as a pool, clubhouse or retention basin, never the individual homes, and a single-family house qualifies only while it stands vacant. The owner signs a Trespass Enforcement Request, posts No Trespassing signs printed with the A.R.S. code in highly visible places, and renews the request every year. On a registered property, officers can trespass a person with no legitimate reason to be there without first reaching the owner or manager.

The program has a limit. The department's guidance says that while a business is open, an officer has to confirm the person is neither a customer nor someone else allowed on the property. That fits the statute, which covers knowingly entering or staying unlawfully once an officer, the owner or another person in lawful control has made a reasonable request to leave, or once there was reasonable notice that entry was prohibited, and which treats an officer's request made for the owner like the owner's own (§ 13-1502(A)(1) and (B)). We ask for the enrollment form, photographs of the signs and the name of whoever told you to leave.

Physical evidence goes to Mesa's Forensic Services, a laboratory accredited by ANAB to ISO/IEC 17025. Its Crime Scene Unit works around the clock, photographing scenes, processing latent prints and casting shoe and tire impressions. The Latent Print Unit compares lifted prints with known ones and searches unknown prints through the Arizona Automated Biometric Identification System and the FBI's NGI system for potential matches. A potential match is a starting point that can be reviewed independently.

Missing property leaves its own trail. Pawnshops, secondhand dealers, auction houses and scrap metal yards report their transactions, and Mesa Police's pawn unit, Recovered Property and Pawn, reviews them; its investigators enter them into a database and check them for stolen items. A pawn record matching a burglary report gives detectives a name, though the seller is not always the person who went inside.

Arrests are processed at the Mesa Police holding facility. Where the only charge is a Mesa city misdemeanor such as trespass, the person waits there for a Mesa judge; where the charge is a felony, or anything that is not a city charge, the department transports the person to the Sheriff's ITR building at 2670 S. 28th Dr. in Phoenix. Under Rule 4.1, a judge must see the person within 24 hours of arrest. The Sheriff's Office notes that charges discussed at that hearing have not yet been reviewed and accepted by a prosecutor.

Restitution is often the largest number in a burglary case. Under § 13-603(C), the court must order a convicted person to repay the victim's economic loss in full, as the court determines it, through the clerk of the court. The County Attorney's guide adds that it covers money losses directly related to the crime, not pain and suffering, and is ordered whether the sentence is probation or prison. An owner's list of missing items is a starting claim; receipts, repair estimates and anything police later returned can move it.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. A burglary conviction is a felony conviction, which makes a person a prohibited possessor of firearms under A.R.S. § 13-3101 until that right is restored. Criminal trespass is on the domestic violence list in A.R.S. § 13-3601, so a trespass at the home of a former spouse, a co-parent or a relative can carry a DV designation. A burglary record can also surface in background checks for jobs that involve working inside homes, and anyone who is not a U.S. citizen should get immigration advice before accepting any plea.

Mesa reports can involve older houses near downtown and in Mesa Grande, apartment complexes along Southern Avenue and University Drive, self-storage lots, new construction around Eastmark, or strip centers in the Fiesta District. HOA communities such as Dobson Ranch or Las Sendas can enroll their pools and clubhouses in the Trespass Enforcement Program, and in an enrolled community an after-hours swim can bring an officer instead of a courtesy warning.

Mesa Police works through divisions that include Downtown, Fiesta, Red Mountain, Superstition and Northeast. Close to the Tempe, Gilbert, Chandler and Apache Junction lines, and in county islands inside Mesa, a trespass may belong to another agency and another misdemeanor court, so read the agency name on the citation. A felony burglary from any part of the county still goes downtown.

Call (480) 405-6767. If a Mesa detective wants to talk about a break-in, or someone you love was booked on a burglary charge, the phone reaches us faster than the form.

Nova Law Group, PLLC, 4455 E. Camelback Rd., Suite C250, Phoenix, AZ 85018. Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., by appointment.