Arizona Criminal Laws

Aggravated assault is a serious felony offense. It involves an assault under special circumstances are involving a particular person or party. Example would be, using a dangerous weapon or dangerous instrument during an assault, such as a knife or a firearm, can subject you to aggravated assault charges. Causing any sort of serious physical injury to another during an assault, such as broken bones or other disfigurement can also result in felony aggravated assault charges. In addition, simple assaults against a particular person, such as a police officer, or a firefighter, or an EMT can result in aggravated assault felony charges. Felony charges are serious business. It can impact your ability to get a job. It can impact your ability to have a firearm. It can also impact your ability to vote. If you or a family member have been charged with a serious felony aggravated assault, you need legal help today. Feel free to give me a call at (480) 994-8824 or you can contact me at my email.

If you’ve been charged with aggravated assault in Arizona, view a profile and complete a contact form.

By: Attorney Max Hanson

Whether you go to jail or face a prison term for a possession of drugs charge really depends on three different questions. One, what type of drug are we talking about? Are we talking about marijuana, are we talking about methamphetamine, are we talking about prescription medications? Two, how much of the drug are we talking about? How much have they alleged that you possessed at the time of your arrest? If we’re talking about a small amount, as opposed to a large amount, that’s going to have an impact on whether probation is available or how long a jail or prison term that you may face. The third question we need to find out is, was there any indications or anything that pointed toward you having an intent to sell the drug? Did they recover scales, did they recover grinders, did they recover the drugs from you in individual pre-packaged amounts, which would all indicate that you had these drugs for the purpose of selling them. Obviously, if you had the drugs for sale, you face larger penalties and more significant penalties than you would if it was just a simple possession. Until we answer all three of these questions, the penalties could range anywhere from probation or even having the charges dismissed after a diversion program for a simple possession of marijuana charge, to ten years in prison for selling methamphetamine. If you or a loved one is facing a drug possession charge, whether it’s simple possession or a possession for sale, feel free to give me a call at (480) 994-8824 or email me.

If you’ve received a possession charge in Arizona, contact a criminal defense attorney in your area.

By: Attorney Max Hanson

Allen and Meyerand Law Firm

We are here with attorneys Jared Allen and Steven Meyerand of the Law Offices of Allen and Meyerand Law Firm. What I’d like to do is find out a little bit about each of you, then explore what you do as a law firm, getting into the practice areas you’ve chosen to specialize in.

What is the philosophy of your firm?

At AM Law, we try to live by the philosophy of providing our clients the defense you need and the service you deserve. For us, that entails providing our clients with a first class criminal defense, being able to provide them with two attorneys with years of experience in this area and providing it to them in a way that they actually get the personal service they deserve, taking the time to get to know our clients as individuals to be available to answer their questions and really work with them through the process of being arrested, charged with a criminal offense and then seeing it all the way through to the end with them. So, that’s the philosophy we try to lead our firm with is providing all of our clients with those two things.

By: Steven Meyerand 

Solomon Kanu – Criminal Defense

We handle mostly DUI cases, misdemeanors, and some classes three, four, and six felonies. I started doing criminal defense; more because I found a lot of my immigration clients get into trouble without knowing what they were doing. The stakes are very, very high for an immigrant to be involved in any criminal violation in Arizona. Little offenses, DUIs that trigger one day jail in Arizona will render the person removable the moment the come out from jail. Immigration will take a hold of them. They will be subject to deport them. They have to be advised of how to live in United States; because it’s a different country for them and different set of rules.

Criminal assault in Arizona means that you’ve been charged with either physically injuring someone or even threatening to physically injure someone if they feel their in imminent danger of harm, which means you come up to someone and you draw back with your fist or something else and they think they’re going to be punched, that’s assault under Arizona law. Additionally, you can be charged with assault if you just simply push someone, goat them, insult them, provoke them into action or provoke them into a fight, you can be charged with assault in Arizona. It’s a criminal misdemeanor offense. Maximum penalty, probation is usually available, but maximum penalty can be up to 6 months in jail, so it’s a serious offense that you need serious help with. If you’ve been charged with assault, give my office a call. Talk to one of our experienced criminal law attorneys. Our number is (480) 994-8824. Or you can contact me by my email address.

By: Attorney Max Hanson

Importance of Trial Experience in Phoenix

Is it important for a defense attorney to have actual experience in trial? I think it abolutely is. The shear volume of trials that we’ve done has provided us with tremendous experience, however, it’s really quality over quantity is how I look at it.

Both Steven and I have done very specific types of felony trials, misdemeanor trials, all the way down to citations and traffic offenses in our career as prosecutors and that’s translated to the same type of success that we had as prosecutors and now translated as defense attorney as well. When you’re familiar with how a courtroom is run, how juries respond to the type of information that’s being presented to them, that is valuable in not only presenting at trial, but in negotiating a resolution for your client.

One of the things we try to avoid at all costs is going to a trial, because we don’t want to put that decision in somebody else’s hands as to how this case is going to resolve. But, because we know how to do good trial work, we do good pre-trial work and we’re able to get the results we’d like to get after a trial at an earlier stage where the risk is much lower.

By: Jared Allen

Trial Cooperation

If witnesses refuse to cooperate with the police, will the case be dismissed? That’s a good question. I’d say it’s an urban legend that if a witness doesn’t want to prosecute, or doesn’t want to testify in a trial setting, then that case is going to be dismissed and we hear that at AM Law from clients in not just domestic violence cases, but cases in general.

We try to educate our clients based on our experience as prosecutors having had those difficulties in getting witnesses to trial, or getting witnesses to the interview prior to a trial. If you’re counting on that as your 100% sure fire way to get your case handled, then your most likely going to be disappointed with the result. We talk about the experience we had as prosecutors, because the power of the state is significant.

Court Subpoena

They can subpoena and compel witnesses to appear in court and that can be as aggressive as going out and arresting the individual that has said that they don’t want to come and testify or that they don’t want to prosecute the case and bring them before the court to testify more or less against their will. So, we try to explain to our clients that we want to build a defense that isn’t dependent on luck, or circumstances that are outside of our control.

Allen & Meyerand

We want to do what we can control here within these four walls. That involves using our experience to talk with prosecutors about potential results that would be beneficial for both parties and we see in domestic violence a lot of times that it is beneficial to have a counseling, or an anger management, or even a familial type of counseling resolution in lieu of having a conviction. That, often times, is enough for the behavior to not be repeated. And then obviously if the behavior is repeated, then there are more serious consequences down the line for those types of offenders.

By: Jared Allen

DUI Litigation Expertise

Steve, at AM Law, what is your experience in handling DUI cases? DUI cases are some of the most common cases that come up in the world of criminal defense. For me personally, while I was a prosecutor I handled hundreds of misdemeanor DUIs as a trial attorney and I finished my career at the Maricopa County attorneys office as a member of their vehicular crimes bureau, where my practice was dedicated solely to cases involving DUIs, or manslaughters, or homicides that involved an impaired driver. So, for me personally, I’ve handled thousands of cases involving DUIs and have focused my training and my practice as a prosecutor in handling those types of cases.

By: Steven Meyerand