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A.R.S. § 13-205

Affirmative defenses; justification; burden of proof

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Brailsford v. Foster (2017)

Most recently applied in 77 Arizona Cases Digest 4 - Aranzi Rae Jon Willis v. Hon. bernini/state (August 2022)

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

A. Except as otherwise provided by law, a defendant shall prove any affirmative defense raised by a preponderance of the evidence. Justification defenses under chapter 4 of this title are not affirmative defenses. Justification defenses describe conduct that, if not justified, would constitute an offense but, if justified, does not constitute criminal or wrongful conduct. If evidence of justification pursuant to chapter 4 of this title is presented by the defendant, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act with justification.

B. This section does not affect the presumption contained in section 13-411, subsection C and section 13-503.

Official source: Arizona State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Arizona statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.