Many clients appear in court for their scheduled status conference or preliminary hearing in the Maricopa County Superior Court only to be informed by the clerk that the case has been scratched and are provided no further information. This can leave one in a very confusing predicament, not knowing what to expect or what the status of their charges are. Typically what happens once someone is arrested for a felony and the case is submitted to the prosecutor’s office is that the prosecutor has to file what’s called a complaint within 48 hours, and this is done in most cases. But if the prosecutor believes that there’s insufficient evidence for the case to move forward, or wants to send the case back to the police agency that investigated it with the request that additional follow-up investigation be completed, the prosecutor may decline to file the complaint and if no complaint is on file when the defendant appears for their preliminary hearing in court, then the case is dismissed at that point. As a matter of law, in most circumstances, the prosecutor has up to seven years to refile the charges. But practically speaking, if the case was furthered and sent back to the police agency for more investigation and a determination is made at some future point for charges to be filed, that will happen much sooner than that period of time.
