Legal Question in Criminal Law in Arizona
Hi I live in Maricopa County and a friend of mine is fighting a fraud/forgery case. The chances of him getting a fair trial in Maricopa County for those type of charges are slim to none. Is there a possibility of getting a change of venue to another county?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Court cases may only be transferred from one state to another state if the matter pends in federal district court. Each state judiciary has sovereignty over itself and for that you cant simply transfer to state court cases.
But fed District courts allow parties to transfer venue from one state to another, if transfer will serve parties as well as the interests of justice.
Change of venue is very difficult to obtain. A person would have to demonstrate to the court that it would not be possible to have a fair and impartial jury in this case. A change of venue is essentially a challenge to the inability of the whole jury pool not to be fair and impartial in deciding the issues. Usually a jury panel can exist without any juror knowing anything about the case or the defendant, and if a juror was exposed to pretrial publicity, and establishes that the publicity would not deter him deciding fairly then the juror stays on the panel. Under such circumstances a change of venue would not be granted.
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