May 29, 2019

The Honorable Doug Ducey
Governor of Arizona
1700 W. Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Governor Ducey,
We serve as the County Attorneys for Pima and Maricopa Counties, representing approximately three-quarters
of Arizona’s population, and we strongly urge you to veto SB 1334. The legislation does not address any
objectively identified issue with Arizona’s prison population or sentencing structure. Instead, it arbitrarily
limits the ability for courts to impose proportionate sentences for the most prolific of offenders in our
communities.
This legislation is problematic for several specific reasons and creates a number of significant unintended
consequences that adversely affect the public safety of Arizona citizens. Currently, under existing law and
Arizona’s sentencing statutes, non-violent first offenders are probation eligible, and chronic habitual offenders,
those who engage in repeat criminal activity, but who manage to elude immediate apprehension and arrest,
face mandatory prison time when caught and indicted for an extended crime spree. SB 1334 completely
changes this.
SB 1334 creates a strong incentive for repeat offenders to commit as many offenses as they can before being
caught because regardless of the number of people or businesses they victimize, whether two or twenty, SB
1334 requires them to be sentenced as a first-time offender for each count.
Arizona’s sentencing scheme as it currently is written protects the public safety of our communities. It
recognizes that someone who broke the law once and repeats his criminal conduct is more likely to do it again
after being set free. Arizona’s current sentencing laws tell us those who commit multiple crimes over a period
of time have victimized numerous people. Arizona’s sentencing laws identify who should be incarcerated and
who is safe to place back in the community. Changing the repetitive sentencing law has numerous unintended
consequences and puts the safety of our communities at much higher risk.
This legislation also ignores the reality that crime must be investigated, evidence collected and analyzed, before
a prosecution commences. It benefits the offender who takes steps to conceal his or her identity, as it will take
longer for law enforcement to complete their investigation while the offender continues to victimize our

 community. It creates an inconsistency in the statute, since those offenders whom the State is successful in
consolidating their offenses for trial pursuant to A.R.S section 13-703(A) will be sentenced as repetitive
offenders; and actual first-time felony offenders will be subject to the same sentence as offenders with multiple
offenses committed on separate occasions.
Consider this scenario. Under SB 1334, a thief who belongs to an organized retail theft ring who commits
multiple thefts over a period of months of a store such as Target/Walmart. This thief would be treated similarly
to someone apprehended for shoplifting for the first time. The damage to Arizona’s retail businesses from
organized retail theft is simply enormous. One busy Walmart store in Tucson suffers more than $1million
losses annually from theft, primarily due to organized retail theft. Mandatory sentencing under our current law
is the primary tool for deterrence. Taking that away with SB 1334 creates a great financial harm to the business
community and to its customers.
The argument that this change in the sentencing law is needed to reduce “mass incarceration” is a misplaced
and erroneous argument. Arizona’s prison population has fallen year over year for the last two years and in
six out of the last ten years. The rate of growth has also slowed dramatically over the same time frame. To
place this in perspective, Arizona’s prison population grew in the ten years from 1999 to 2009 by 54%.
However, from 2009 to 2018, the growth was just 4% and, as mentioned, the prison population has fallen each
of the last two years representing a 2% decline from 2016.
Over similar timeframes, from 1999 to 2009 and 2009 to 2017, Arizona’s total crime rate as reported in the
FBI’s Uniform Crime Report fell 28% to 15%, respectively. In fact, Arizona’s 2017 overall crime rate of
3,423 offenses per 100,000 is the lowest it has been since 1963.
Proponents for indiscriminate changes to Arizona’s sentencing laws would make the observation that with
crime rates at historic lows, why do we have the prison population that we do? It is due in no small part to
incarcerating the right offenders using Arizona’s measured and targeted sentencing statutes.
Four different times in the last decade Arizona’s prosecutors have surveyed Arizona’s prison population to
review the criminal histories of those incarcerated and, without exception, each time we have found that the
prison population consists of over 94% of inmates with violent and or repetitive felony convictions. The
most recent Corrections at a glance report identifies over 74% of inmates have a current or past conviction for
a violent offense. By incarcerating the right offenders, we should expect to see an impact on crime rates.
We believe that any review of our State’s sentencing statutes should be driven by a forthright review of
objective data to clearly define issues with criminal justice system outcomes. There is no need for us to
needlessly jeopardize public safety or incentivize serial offenders. Again, we respectfully ask you to veto SB
1334.
Sincerely,

Barbara LaWall
Pima County Attorney

Bill Montgomery
Maricopa County Attorney

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