2/25/16 Arizona Court of Appeals holds that an element of a Driving On Suspended License charge is that the defendant knew or should have known their license was suspended.
In Arizona a person can be convicted of the class 1 misdemeanor criminal offense of driving on a suspended license (DOSL). If found guilty, the person can be sentenced to up to 6 months in jail.
In State v. Yazzie, the defendant was charged with DUI while his license was suspended, which is an Aggravated DUI (felony), as well as DOSL, which is a class 1 misdemeanor. For the Aggravated DUI charge the jury was instructed that an element of the offense that the State must prove was, that the defendant knew or should have known his license was suspended. For the misdemeanor DOSL charge the jury was not told the State must prove the defendant knew or should have known his license was suspended (left unsaid in the court of appeals opinion is why the DOSL charge was tried to a jury when it is not a jury-eligible charge). The jury found the defendant not guilty of the Aggravated DUI charge but guilty of the DOSL charge. The court of appeals reversed the conviction on the DOSL charge and in doing so said what the State must prove was that the defendant knew or should have known his license was suspended as an element of the offense, and therefore the jury should have been so instructed.
http://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/OpinionFiles/Div1/2013/1%20CA-CR%2012-0517-170719.pdf
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