A Guide
A note to University of Arizona students and their parents: Southern Arizona law enforcement is aggressive, and a first offense deserves clear guidance before it becomes a record.
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Michael has represented hundreds of University of Arizona students, and he still receives calls and inquiries from parents and students every week.
From fake IDs to underage drinking, disorderly conduct, assault, domestic violence, DUI, drugs and fraternity hazing, Michael has worked personally with the University of Arizona Dean of Students Office for over twenty-five years. He addresses the many Dean’s Office officials, judges, prosecutors, University of Arizona Police and diversion officers involved in student cases.
Fraternities, their officers, members and pledges have engaged Michael dozens of times for representation in disciplinary and criminal matters, some of which received national media attention.
Among students and parents alike, Michael is widely known as a compassionate and calming influence.
Student cases are different. Parents often find their children, often eighteen or nineteen years old, enmeshed in the criminal justice system here in Tucson, hundreds if not thousands of miles from home. It is a jarring experience.
A note to parents
A special note to parents & University of Arizona Students: Parents from the reaches of Orange County, CA, the Bay Area, Chicagoland (including Lake County), & the greater New York Metropolitan area (particularly northern New Jersey) contact us quite a bit. Parents almost uniformly state, and meritoriously so, that they have just spent upwards of $40,000.00 a year to send their son or daughter to University of Arizona, only to find their son or daughter, basically good students, hundreds (or thousands) of miles away, suddenly enmeshed in the criminal justice system here in Pima County.
Unfortunately, it comes as a great and unwelcome surprise, that the law enforcement culture of Southern Arizona is quite different from the places I mentioned above (one parent bemoaned that this wasn’t mentioned in the brochure). And it’s true: Southern Arizona law enforcement practices both on and around have become increasingly, and in some cases unreasonably aggressive. Fortunately, about half the time, for de minimus first offense criminal charges, like a “minor in possession of alcohol” we often counsel that private legal representation is not necessary, that the matter will likely be dismissed through a diversion program. Yet, I’m struck at how grateful parents and students are to receive any counsel, and how aggravating the situation is.
After all, no one wants to go to college only to wind up with a criminal record, even for a misdemeanor. We commiserate completely, and try to talk to every parent and student who calls and provide some basic guidance.
Start here
Classes just started on Tuesday, three days ago, and already we have received calls from students and parents. Here’s a quick guide to common University of Arizona citations and arrests, especially for undergraduates, based on our many years experience representing students.
Fake identification is among the most commonly charged offenses against undergraduates in Tucson, and among the most commonly misunderstood. Students assume a confiscated card is the end of it. Bars, University of Arizona Police and the Dean of Students Office each treat it differently, and a charge can follow a student into background checks years later. What a fake ID charge actually involves, and three things about fake IDs that might surprise you.
Minor in possession is the charge Michael is asked about more than any other, and often the one most readily resolved. Many first offenses are dismissed through diversion, and Michael frequently tells parents so rather than taking the case. Others are not so simple, particularly where a citation arrives alongside disorderly conduct or a driving charge. Common alcohol crimes for University of Arizona students, and what happens when a minor buys beer at the Student Union.
Arizona makes it a separate crime to be under twenty-one and driving with any amount of alcohol in the body — no impairment, and no threshold reading, is required. Unlike an ordinary first-offense DUI, these cases carry a mandatory licence suspension and do not resolve as easily as a minor in possession. Arizona’s underage DUI laws, and students, DUI, drugs and alcohol in a city with 300 days of sunshine.
Possession charges reach students through dorm searches, traffic stops and roommates. The criminal exposure is only part of it: a drug conviction can affect federal student aid and university housing at the same time. Marijuana possession and paraphernalia, and what a marijuana wax charge cost one UofA student.
Disorderly conduct is the charge police reach for when a night out goes wrong, and it is broad enough to cover a great deal. For a student it rarely arrives alone — it tends to accompany an alcohol citation, a fight, or a call to a residence hall, and each piece carries its own consequences. Disorderly conduct and University of Arizona students.
A university disciplinary proceeding runs separately from the criminal case, on its own timetable and its own standard of proof. A student can be cleared in City Court and still face suspension, or the reverse. Michael has worked with the Dean of Students Office for over twenty-five years and handles both tracks together. The Dean of Students Office and accusations of misconduct, and whether university discipline is fair.
Fraternities, their officers, members and pledges have engaged Michael dozens of times. Chapter matters are unlike individual ones: an incident can put the chapter, its leadership and individual members in jeopardy at once, before the University, the national organisation and the criminal courts together, and some have drawn national attention. Greek life and criminal charges.
In the residence halls a student’s privacy rights are, as a practical matter, left at the key-carded entrance, and Resident Assistants serve as de facto auxiliaries of the University of Arizona Police. Most students and parents learn this only afterwards. What you should know about arrests in the dorms.
Posts, group chats and photographs now arrive as evidence in both criminal and disciplinary matters, and students are regularly disciplined for what they wrote long before anyone was charged. When students are disciplined for social media posts.
Campus allegations proceed on two tracks at once, and the university’s will usually move first. These are the matters where the gap between a disciplinary hearing and a criminal court is widest, and where early, careful counsel matters most. Arizona courts and greater scrutiny of college sexual assault proceedings.
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