James E. Novak
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In a recent opinion coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant argued that the trial court made an error in determining the scope of her original convictions and sentences. Originally, the defendant was charged and convicted of several drug-related charges after a police officer found methamphetamine on her person in a routine traffic stop. Four of the convictions revolved specifically around the defendant’s possession of drug paraphernalia. On appeal, the defendant argued that these convictions for drug paraphernalia should have been merged into a single conviction, and she should not have been tried for four separate crimes. The court of appeals ended up agreeing with the defendant, and it modified the trial court’s decision to reflect only one conviction for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was pulled over one evening in 2018 for a traffic violation. The police officer conducting the traffic stop quickly suspected that the defendant had been drinking, and he arrested and searched her to confirm his suspicions. During the search, the officer found methamphetamine in the defendant’s clothing.

Once the defendant arrived at the station, she told officers that she routinely dealt drugs and that she had drugs at her residence. Officers searched her home and found marijuana, methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, and a gun. She was charged with several crimes, including two counts of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana for sale. She was subsequently found guilty at trial.

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In a recent case coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant unsuccessfully appealed his convictions for aggravated assault, kidnapping, and robbery. Originally, the defendant was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to 82 years in prison. Despite arguing on appeal that the trial court should have suppressed the victim’s method of identifying him as the primary suspect in the case, the defendant was unsuccessful in his attempts and the convictions were affirmed.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the victim in this case was at home with family members when the defendant arrived at her house. The defendant forced his way into the home and immediately asked where the victim kept her drugs. He threatened to kill the victim’s father, who was in the house if no one told him where he could find marijuana. The defendant held the victim and her father at gunpoint while his accomplice searched the house.

After a few minutes, the defendant stole some items from the victim, including the victim’s cell phone, and went out to put the items in his car. At that point, the victim shut and locked the front door, preventing the defendant from re-entering. The defendant left the scene, and police officers located and charged him after using a tracking device to find the victim’s cell phone.

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Recently, the city of Mesa, Arizona announced that it will be opening a new domestic violence court focused specifically on the most serious domestic violence cases that come through the city’s court system. According to the city government, the new court is opening in response to a rise in domestic violence homicides between 2020 and 2021, and it will aim to offer services to both victims and defendants so that the rate of domestic violence in the city can begin to decrease. While the impacts of the new court, which opens July 7, are yet to be seen, the city’s announcement does provide important information for defendants facing domestic violence charges.

New Strategies

The court will employ a variety of tactics that are not currently in use by the city court system as it stands. For example, when imposing sentences, the court will use not only prison time but also counseling and rehabilitation so that defendants can work through any issues that the court thinks they might be facing. These sanctions will include frequent check-ins between defendants and the domestic violence court, meaning defendants will have to report on their progress in counseling and other rehabilitative programs as often as the court deems necessary.

The court will also impose deferred jail sentences for defendants who are found guilty of domestic violence. These sentences require defendants to go through certain programs before they have to report to prison, and if the defendants fail to comply with the terms that the court has imposed on them, they can be imprisoned as a result.

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In a recent Arizona drug case, the court was tasked with deciding whether or not juries are required to unanimously agree on what type of drug a defendant used when issuing a guilty verdict for certain drug crimes. After considering the arguments on both sides, the court decided that a jury must unanimously identify the specific kind of drug when convicting a defendant for possession of drug paraphernalia or sale of narcotic drugs.

Facts of the Case

In this case, three different defendants were charged with drug crimes, and because their cases were all substantially similar, the court combined their three cases into one. The defendants were all U.S. residents who had come from Mexico, and they all had legal status in the States. One of the defendants was convicted of possession of drug paraphernalia, and the remaining defendants were convicted of possession of a narcotic drug for sale.

Because the defendants were not originally from the U.S., their charges had different consequences than they would if they were all born in the States. For some criminal offenses, judges can impose immigration consequences on defendants as a form of punishment. In this case, the immigration court ordered that the three men be removed from the country, telling them that they had to return to Mexico because of their drug convictions. The defendants appealed.

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In a recent child molestation case coming out of Arizona, the court vacated the defendant’s convictions and sentences, remanding the case for a new trial. Originally, the defendant had been found guilty of molesting a minor, and he made multiple arguments in his attempt to appeal the guilty conviction. While the court rejected the majority of the defendant’s arguments, it accepted his assertion that the trial court had unfairly admitted hearsay into the evidence for the jury to consider. Agreeing with the defendant on this point, the court vacated the guilty conviction.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the child involved in this case lived with her mother and her stepfather when she was four years old. At that time, the child’s stepfather, the defendant, began touching the child sexually at least once a week. This behavior continued for many years, through the family’s move to Sierra Vista when the child turned eleven.

The defendant told the child not to tell anyone about the sexual activity. Eventually, the defendant and the child’s mother separated and moved away from each other. In November of that same year, the child’s gym teacher noticed that she was not acting like “her usual self.” When the gym teacher asked the child what was happening, the girl admitted that her stepfather had been molesting her. The gym teacher and the school counselor promptly reported these statements to the police.

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In a recent case coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant appealed his convictions for first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, and aggravated assault. The defendant challenged the trial court’s decisions, and the higher court concluded that the defendant was rightfully found guilty. There was another issue, though, that the court wanted to address: because it was not clear whether or not the prosecution had excluded a potential jury member based on her race, the court remanded the case to the lower court.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was in a romantic relationship for several years, eventually living with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s grandmother for a period of time. In late 2016, the defendant and his girlfriend got in a fight, and the girlfriend asked him to move out. The defendant kept one house key to himself and began living in his truck.

A few weeks later, the defendant used his key to let himself into the house. While he was there, the defendant’s ex-girlfriend and another man entered the house. The defendant fought with both individuals and retrieved a metal bar that he then used to threaten them. He eventually exchanged the metal bar for knives from the kitchen, which he put in both of his hands and brought into his ex-girlfriend’s bedroom. At that point, the defendant attacked the man that his girlfriend had supposedly been seeing. He stabbed the man seventeen times and also cut his ex-girlfriend’s arm when she attempted to intervene.

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In a recent assault case coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant appealed his guilty verdict. At trial, the prosecutor referenced eight prior convictions on the defendant’s record, and the defendant argued that this reference unnecessarily biased the jury deciding his case. The court looked to Arizona law and ultimately disagreed with the defendant, deciding it was acceptable for the prosecutor to mention the prior convictions during trial. Given this disagreement, the court maintained the defendant’s original guilty verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant and his girlfriend got into an altercation one evening in January 2019. At the time, the couple lived together at the girlfriend’s mother’s home with their child. After the altercation, the defendant left the home and consumed alcohol, returning to find his girlfriend and one of her friends in the house.

The couple again started to fight, this time physically. The defendant hit his girlfriend several times, bloodied her nose, and “choke slammed” her onto the bed. When the girlfriend’s friend attempted to intervene, the defendant pushed her out of the way and continued hitting his girlfriend. Police arrived at the scene, but by that point, the defendant had left the home.

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In a recent case coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant’s appeal of his guilty verdict for failure to register as a sex offender was denied. Originally, the defendant had been charged, found guilty, and sentenced when he failed to register as a sex offender in the county where he resided. On appeal, the defendant argued that the prosecution should not have been able to state that he was convicted of child molestation instead of any other “sex offense” during trial – this information, said the defendant, unnecessarily biased the jury. The court ultimately disagreed with the defendant and affirmed his guilty verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was convicted of child molestation fourteen years ago and was ordered to register as a sex offender for life. In 2019, police officers contacted the defendant in Arizona and discovered he had not registered as a sex offender in his county. At that time, the defendant told officers that he did not think registering was necessary. One year later, officers arrested the defendant and charged him with failure to register as a sex offender.

The Decision

Before trial, the defendant’s lawyer asked the court to prevent the jury from learning that the specific crime for which the defendant was convicted was child molestation. According to defense counsel, it would be perfectly sufficient for the jury to learn that he had been convicted of a sex offense in general; telling jury members that he had molested a child was both unnecessary and highly prejudicial.

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In a recent opinion from an Arizona court involving sexual assault, the defendant’s appeal of his guilty verdict was denied. Originally, the defendant was found guilty of sexual conduct with a minor. He appealed, arguing the trial court unfairly used evidence of sexual abuse that occurred outside of the county where the court resided. Disagreeing with the defendant, the court affirmed the defendant’s guilty verdict.

The Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the victim of sexual assault in this case was 13 years old when the defendant began molesting him. The defendant, a close family friend, would stay at the victim’s house and come into his room at night. On other occasions, the defendant brought the victim to an unoccupied house and engaged in sexual conduct with him there.

At trial, the jury found the defendant guilty of four counts of molestation of a child and one count of sexual conduct with a minor. He was sentenced to time in prison, and he immediately appealed his guilty verdict.

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In a recent sexual assault case in Arizona, the court denied the defendant’s appeal of his guilty verdict. The defendant was originally convicted of sexual conduct with a minor, attempted sexual conduct with a minor, and continuous sexual abuse of a child. On appeal, he made several arguments, one of which was that the court should not have been able to access incriminating statements he made during phone calls with both of the children. Disagreeing with this argument, the court denied the appeal.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant in this case was a family friend of the victims and their parents. For a couple of years, the defendant would regularly stay overnight at the family’s home after the family moved to Arizona in 2004. During these visits, the defendant sexually assaulted the two teenage brothers that lived at the residence.

In 2018, one of the brothers called the defendant to confront him about the abuse while detectives listened in. At first, the defendant denied the allegations, but eventually, he made incriminating statements. A few weeks later, in front of detectives, the same brother made another call to the defendant, who once again admitted to the abuse. After this second incriminating call, detectives listened in to a third phone call, this time between the second brother and the defendant. Again, the defendant admitted to sexually abusing the brothers.

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Contact Information
Law Office of James Novak, PLLC
4500 S Lakeshore Dr #352
Tempe, AZ 85282
Phone: (480) 413-1499Text: (602) 908-8123

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