Stalking and Harassment Lawyer in Scottsdale, AZ

Which charge you face settles who prosecutes it and which courthouse hears it. The City Attorney's Prosecution Division lists threats and intimidation among the misdemeanors it brings, and it brings them at the city courthouse, 3700 N. 75th St. Harassment under A.R.S. 13-2921(A) is a class 1 misdemeanor. The basic threat offense, threatening or intimidating under A.R.S. 13-1202, carries the same class, although a threat made to retaliate against someone for reporting crime, or made by a criminal street gang member, is a class 6 felony. Stalking (A.R.S. 13-2923) is never a misdemeanor: class 5 in general, class 3 where the alleged victim reasonably feared death. Aggravated harassment (A.R.S. 13-2921.01) is class 6 or class 5. Felonies committed in the city, the prosecutor's page says, are handled by either the Attorney General's Office or the County Attorney, with trial in Superior Court downtown.

These complaints rarely start online: the city's web crime report takes only a short list of property offenses and identity theft and routes everything else to 480-312-5000. Investigations section detectives handle persons crimes, and Crimes Against Persons investigators work from the city's Family Advocacy Center on Via Linda. Screenshots, call logs and the other person's account are often in hand before one calls you.

Many cases begin as a civil petition in the same courthouse. Petitioners complete it on AZPOINT, the state's online system, then come in during walk-in hours or arrange by phone or email to appear remotely, at no court cost, according to the court's protective orders page. When the court is closed, any police officer can help a petitioner seek an emergency order. Where the two people are not partners, relatives or household members, the usual civil remedy is an injunction against harassment under A.R.S. 12-1809. No civil order is itself a criminal charge.

What makes an order enforceable against you is service. Since January 1, 2020, the court has sent every granted order immediately to law enforcement to be served. Under A.R.S. 13-3602(N), an order of protection binds you once you receive a copy of it with the petition, and it lasts two years from that service date; the term for an injunction against harassment is one year after service (A.R.S. 12-1809(J)). You may request one hearing in writing while it is in force, and the judge can then modify, quash or continue it. Sworn testimony at that hearing can be quoted back to you in a criminal case.

After a city-charge arrest by Scottsdale Police, the person may be booked into the City of Scottsdale Jail. Scottsdale, according to the Sheriff's Office, runs initial appearances on its own city charges, while anyone held on county charges sees a judge at the Sheriff's Initial Appearance Court, 2670 S. 28th Dr. (the Intake, Transfer and Release facility in Phoenix), and that court sits seven days a week, holidays included. Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 4.1 gives the system 24 hours from arrest to hold that hearing, and A.R.S. 13-3967(B)(1) makes the judge weigh the victim's views on release. Any harassment of the protected person during a valid, served order, or during a release term that forbids contact, becomes aggravated harassment, a felony.

While any order or release term applies, keep away from the person who reported you. No calls, texts, comments, gifts, apologies or requests to drop the case, and nothing relayed by a friend, relative or coworker. If that person writes first, do not reply; preserve the message for your lawyer.

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's criminal case page adds the local rule: a public defender may be available when the case qualifies, for example because the prosecutor is seeking jail, and the defendant qualifies financially. You ask at the arraignment or a pretrial conference, on a form from the courtroom clerk.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. All four offenses on this page are listed in A.R.S. 13-3601(A), so a qualifying relationship puts the DV letters on the complaint, and a misdemeanor DV conviction requires an offender treatment program the defendant pays for under A.R.S. 13-3601.01. A conviction for a listed offense against the same person can later turn a new harassment accusation involving that person into a class 5 felony. DV probation, or any felony conviction, makes a person a prohibited possessor under A.R.S. 13-3101 while that status lasts. A noncitizen should get immigration advice before any plea.