Articles
Arizona DUI
February 7, 2005
Arizona DUI jury trials may be emliminated
Prosecutors and municipal court judges in Arizona are pushing to eliminate the right to a jury trial for misdemeanor drunk driving charges in the wake of an Arizona Supreme Court decision.
The Research and Statistic Administrative Office of the Courts, who compiles numbers on behalf of the Arizona Supreme Court, said there were more than 65,600 trials for misdemeanor offenses at the state's Justice and Municipal courts in fiscal 2004, ending June 30. Of these trials, just 1,273 were jury trials, and three fourths of them were criminal traffic cases, with the majority being DUIs.
For the supporters of eliminating the right to a jury trial for DUI charges, the main difficulty is the Arizona state statute explicitly granting jury trials in DUI cases. According to attorneys specializing in DUI cases, taking away the right to a jury trial is a violation of rights.
Critics of the movement to eliminate jury trials for DUI charges argue that while a DUI is a serious crime, the offense differs from a lot of other felonies in Superior Court because it is mostly likely to be committed by a regular person and not hardened criminals.
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