Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

A.R.S. § 13-409

Justification; use of physical force in law enforcement

Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Rodney Cable v. City of Phoenix (2016)

Most recently applied in Samuel Paz v. City of Tucson (November 2023)

How often courts cite this section

200120102020202310
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 person is justified in threatening or using physical force against another if in making or assisting in making an arrest or detention or in preventing or assisting in preventing the escape after arrest or detention of that other person, such person uses or threatens to use physical force and all of the following exist:

1. A reasonable person would believe that such force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest or detention or prevent the escape.

2. Such person makes known the purpose of the arrest or detention or believes that it is otherwise known or cannot reasonably be made known to the person to be arrested or detained.

3. A reasonable person would believe the arrest or detention to be lawful.

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