Resisting Arrest Lawyer in Scottsdale, AZ

A.R.S. 13-2508 covers intentionally preventing an arrest, or attempting to, when you reasonably know the person making it is a peace officer exercising official authority. The method alleged sets the class. If the State says you used or threatened physical force against the officer or someone else, or used any other method that created a substantial risk of physical injury, the charge is a class 6 felony. Passive resistance is the lower tier: nonviolent physical conduct, or a failure to act, with the aim of impeding, hindering or delaying the arrest. It is a class 1 misdemeanor.

On a Scottsdale Police arrest, the misdemeanor form is generally prosecuted by the city's Prosecution Division, whose page covers misdemeanors committed in Scottsdale, in City Court on 75th Street. The division's list of examples does not name resisting arrest, though it ends with "other misdemeanors." A DPS or Sheriff's Office arrest can instead put the misdemeanor in a county justice court, McDowell Mountain Justice Court among them.

The felony forms leave Scottsdale's prosecutors behind: the city's page names the Maricopa County Attorney and the Arizona Attorney General as the offices that take state felonies. Those cases go to Superior Court's downtown buildings, the Central Court Building, 201 W. Jefferson St., or the South Court Tower, 175 W. Madison St. Confirm the building on your current notice. A felony count never makes a stop in justice court.

Booked on the misdemeanor? Scottsdale Police can keep you at its jail in the downtown station on 75th Street, where the jail page lists jail court from 9 a.m. until noon, depending on how many initial appearances are waiting. City bonds can be posted at City Court during the work week; outside business hours, the Jail Release Area at the back of the court building takes them. A felony count sends the first appearance to ITR, the county's booking center at 2670 S. 28th Dr., Phoenix. In both settings, the initial appearance has to come within 24 hours of arrest under Rule 4.1.

One local rule matters more on this charge than on most. The Prosecution Division requires a written request for jail video within 30 days of the arrest and warns that, once that window passes, the footage can be erased as routine. If the report says the struggle continued at the jail, or booking itself is in dispute, the window can close before the first court date, so we send the request right away.

Scottsdale Police accepts records requests for on-body camera recordings, and its records page warns that camera footage takes longer than written reports, so in a pending case the prosecutor's disclosure is often quicker. The department's transparency page adds that its use of force review documents each interaction going past typical handcuffing. Those reports, every officer's camera and the jail video can show the same seconds from different angles.

Do not assume the court will appoint you a lawyer. Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 6.1(b) entitles an indigent defendant to appointed counsel in a proceeding that may result in punishment by loss of liberty. In misdemeanor court, the prosecutor can avow that no jail will be requested and the judge can rule that no jail will be imposed, and once that happens, there is no right to appointed counsel at all. Arizona's Court of Appeals upheld exactly that in Campa v. Fleming, 134 Ariz. 330 (App. 1982). Scottsdale City Court lets a defendant ask for a public defender at arraignment or at a pretrial conference, but a request is only the start of that process.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. Employers in security, schools, health care and public service, and the boards that license professionals, may see even a misdemeanor resisting conviction. A felony conviction leaves a person a prohibited possessor until the right to possess firearms is restored, and while a class 6 offense remains undesignated, A.R.S. 13-604 treats it as a felony for firearm purposes. If you are not a U.S. citizen, get immigration advice before accepting any plea.