Being charged with burglary or robbery in Arizona is a serious situation. Arizona law prescribes extremely harsh penalties for these crimes because it considers them to be dangerous crimes, meaning that they are assumed to place the victim in grave danger. If you have been charged with either crime, you are likely scared and have many questions about what these charges mean for you and what your options are. Our experienced defense attorneys can help.
At Arizona Lawyers, our seasoned criminal defense attorneys have over 30 years of successful experience aggressively representing clients in the courtroom. This means we have a huge number of defense strategies and a significant amount of legal knowledge in our defense arsenal that we are able to put to work for you. Our firm also has substantial resources to put towards fully investigating your case, meaning we are able to interview witnesses, examine evidence, and explore whether any of your civil rights were violated at any point leading up to your initial hearing.
We have represented a large number of victims charged with burglary or robbery, enough to be able to confidently say two things for certain: not everyone who is charged with these crimes is guilty, and there is a difference between a one-time bad call in judgment and a person who deserves substantial punishment. In other words, we believe you are innocent until proven guilty, and we know that there are often mitigating circumstances which forced people to make decisions they otherwise wouldn’t.
Many times clients are confused about the difference between burglary and robbery. The difference is an important one. Burglary involves entering or remaining unlawfully on someone else’s property while contemplating committing or actually committing a theft. There are three degrees of burglary; the lowest, the third degree, carries a penalty of 18 months to three years in prison, while the highest, the first degree, carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison.
Robbery, however, is when you directly confront another person and force them, through verbal or physical threats, to give their property to you. The penalty you face for committing robbery depends on a number of factors, including whether you were armed while committing the robbery. In general, the more threat you are perceived to have posed to the victim during the robbery, the greater your sentence, and you could serve up to 21 years in prison.
The serious penalties should make clear how important it is that you hire an experienced criminal defense attorney as soon as you learn you are charged with a theft crime. At Arizona Lawyers, we get to work the minute you call us and are committed to protecting your rights and asserting every defense available to you. We aggressively defend each of our clients—and are honest with them about how the unique circumstances of their case impact the legal strategies available to them. We will never put our bottom line above your best interests.
If you have been charged with a theft crime, the best decision you can make is to contact Arizona Lawyers. We serve clients in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Yuma, Flagstaff, and Glenndale areas, and are ready to help you. Contact us today.