How does a case get to Felony Court in Arizona?

Cindy CastilloArizona Law




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Hi my name is Cindy Castillo with Castillo law. Today I’d like to talk to you about how your case gets to felony court in the event that you been contacted by an officer or being investigated for a felony offense.

Essentially there are three different ways that your case can get to felony court:

Release Hearing

The first way that your case can get to felony court is if an officer has stopped you or made contact with you, and he is actually taking you down to the jail and asked that you appear before a commissioner in order to be heard regarding the charges. If this happens your likely to see a commissioner or a judge and the commissioner or judge will set some release conditions and read you what the charges are. Typically not a whole lot happens at this stage other than your release conditions being set. There are a lot of ways an attorney can influence this particular stage because they can argue for the least onerous release conditions and in some situations argue to the judge that there is simply not enough probable cause to hold for the charges or for one or two of the charges.

Grand Jury

The second way that your case can get to felony court is in the event that an officer has made contact with you or has been investigating you but they’ve simply decided to send the information to the county attorney’s office. They’re going to let the county attorney determine whether or not your case should be charged and what offense should be charged if any. If this happens then usually the county attorney will be either sending you a summons and complaint in the mail or they may send the information or present information to a Grand Jury. We will be talking about Grand Juries later but just know that there are ways that an attorney can also assist you in the grand jury stage, and you should always contact an attorney if you know that your case may be presented to the Grand Jury.

Misdemeanor Court to County Attorney

The third way that your case might get to felony court is in the event that an officer simply has overlooked the fact that this is a felony offense and he decides that he’s going to submit it to misdemeanor court. Now once the misdemeanor court receives the information the information will be reviewed by a prosecutor. The prosecutor can determine that there is sufficient evidence in order for you to be charged with a felony offense. If this happens than what they will do is send the information over to the county attorney’s office. The county attorney’s office will then charge you in that direction. Again there is a way than attorney can help you at this stage. The way that the attorney can help you is if you get to an attorney quick enough they can determine that there is sufficient proof or sufficient evidence that this case might go felony, and if you get to the court quick enough and are able to get the case played out then you can avoid felony prosecution.

If you know that you are being investigated or received any type of citation or contact from a law enforcement officer you should always contact an attorney. Please fill free to contact me at Castillo Law 480-206-5204.
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If you have questions about your criminal case in Arizona call Castillo Law for a Free Consultation 24/7 at (480) 206-5204. Se Habla Español.