Given Charles Ryan plea deal, is being drunk a defense to crime in Arizona?

Legal experts are questioning Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell’s reasoning behind a plea deal that allowed former Arizona prisons chief Charles Ryan to avoid lockup, saying the arguments offered by the county's top prosecutor are inconsistent with how other criminal defendants are treated and contrary to Arizona law.

Ryan was indicted on two dangerous felony charges after engaging police in a drunken, hour-long standoff at his home in 2022, during which he pointed a gun at police officers.

But because of a deal offered by Mitchell, Ryan ended up pleading no contest to a disorderly conduct charge. Mitchell also declined to pursue a charge of aggravated assault against a police officer.

Despite pleas from the officers who said they feared for their lives during the standoff, a judge sentenced Ryan to probation.

After Ryan's sentencing, a spokesperson for Mitchell said the county attorney determined Ryan was too drunk to know what he was doing, and her review of video evidence found Ryan did not point his gun at police.

"Part of the decision-making, under the applicable law, is a determination of intent," said Jeanine L'Ecuyer. "Did the defendant intend to place officers in harm’s way?"

L'Ecuyer said Ryan's extreme intoxication — his wife told police he had consumed half a bottle of tequila that evening — and a self-inflicted gunshot injury were factors that led Mitchell to assess that Ryan "was unable to form intent."

But voluntary intoxication is "literally not a defense in Arizona," said Ben McJunkin, an ASU Law professor and the associate deputy director of ASU's Academy for Justice, a criminal justice reform think tank.

"Arizona has a specific statute, it's 13-503, that says temporary intoxication resulting from the voluntary ingestion of alcohol is not a defense for any criminal act or requisite state of mind," McJunkin said. "And the Arizona Supreme Court has interpreted that quite clearly to say that somebody's temporary intoxication cannot be used as evidence that they didn't have the specific intent necessary."

With respect to an aggravated assault charge, McJunkin said, a person has to intentionally cause reasonable apprehension of physical injury. "But you cannot say, 'I lacked the intention because I was intoxicated.' That's just not a thing that's allowed as a defense in Arizona," he said.

Another part of the county attorney's evaluation, L'Ecuyer said, was considering "whether the gun actually aimed at the officers."

"After detailed review of the video, that does not appear to be the case," she said.

Brandishing a weapon typically meets the basic definition of aggravated assault, McJunkin said, though displaying a weapon and pointing it can be interpreted differently.

Mitchell said her office contacted members of the Tempe Police Department command staff at the time of charging, and they agreed that “the elements of aggravated assault were not there."

"In order to charge someone with aggravated assault, the State has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person intended to put the victim in fear for his life or of injury," Mitchell said in an emailed statement. "There was no evidence that was his intent."

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Former prosecutor: Voluntary intoxication no defense in Arizona

Mitchell's reasoning for not pursuing more serious charges against Ryan is "laughable," said Robert Campos, a former prosecutor in Laz Paz and Maricopa counties who opened his own legal practice in 1996.

Ryan's kid-glove treatment was evidence of two systems of justice in Maricopa County, he said.

"The law is very clear in Arizona. Intoxication is not a defense to eliminate the intent element of a crime," Campos said. "So for her to say that that played a significant role in her charging decision is absurd."

While the prosecutor does have to prove intent, Campos said, that should have been fairly easy to do given the eyewitness statements of police officers on the scene, who stated that Ryan pointed a gun at them after refusing to comply with their orders and caused them to fear for their lives.

Mitchell's office also cited its review of body camera footage, which concluded that Ryan had not directly pointed the gun at officers. But Campos said the issue of where the gun was aimed was a red herring.

"In Arizona, you don't have to point the gun to commit aggravated assault," Campos said. The element a prosecutor has to prove is that the person with the weapon put another person "in reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily injury," he said.

Campos said people are frequently charged with aggravated assault in Arizona without ever pointing a gun at anyone.

"You see this a lot in road rage cases," he said. "You're in one car, and the person in the other car has a gun and is waving it around — that person gets charged with aggravated assault."

Campos said Ryan should have been charged with two counts of aggravated assault against a police officer, which could have led to sentences ranging from seven to 21 years in prison. "That's where this case should have started," Campos said.

"I've never seen prosecutors start out with such a low charging standard," Campos said. "This was not standard operating procedure."

Campos said the police officers involved were right to be upset about the way the case played out.

"It sends a terrible message to police officers that this county attorney doesn't care about their safety," Campos said.

Defense lawyer: 'Hypocritical' to treat other defendants differently

Derek Debus, who began his career at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and now is a criminal defense attorney, said that while voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a crime, good defense attorneys will still present it as a mitigating circumstance to preserve the argument for future litigation and try to persuade the prosecutor.

But Debus said that until the reasoning behind Ryan's plea deal was made public, he had never heard of voluntary intoxication actually impacting prosecuting decisions.

"Defense attorneys argue all the time that our client was drunk — they didn't comprehend what they were doing, and they made a mistake," Debus said. "And the County Attorney is happy to come back at us and say, 'Hey, too bad, so sad — they knew they were going to get drunk, and they need to be held accountable for those actions."

Debus wondered if Ryan's plea deal meant there had been a change of heart at the prosecutors' office.

"Is this going to be the new policy of the Maricopa County Attorney's office moving forward? That voluntary intoxication can be a mitigating circumstance? Because I'm on board with that," Debus said. "That would be a great policy change."

Even if Ryan's plea deal is not a harbinger of changing attitudes in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Debus predicted legal defenders would be quick to seize on it.

"Any defense attorney in Maricopa County that isn't planning to use this example of disparate treatment to their client's advantage is arguably committing malpractice," Debus said.

John Gattermeyer, a criminal defense lawyer in Phoenix, said the most troubling aspect of Ryan's prosecution was the inconsistency the Maricopa County Attorney's Office demonstrated.

"I have had clients in very similar experiences, who were having a substance-fueled breakdown when they were encountered by police," Gattermeyer said. "But they were treated differently because they aren't affluent, and they aren't connected."Moving forward, he said, all defendants in Maricopa County should be given the same opportunities Ryan received."It's hypocritical to not approach other cases from that angle," Gattermeyer said.

Mitchell, through L'Ecuyer, declined to comment on criticism of her decisions related to Ryan.

In a statement, Mitchell said that accepting voluntary intoxication as a mitigating circumstance by criminal defendants has never been the policy of the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and never will be. She also said it has never been and never will be the policy of the office to decline an aggravated assault charge because a gun was not pointed at a police officer.

"I follow the law," Mitchell said.

Have a news tip? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or 812-243-5582. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @JimmyJenkins. 

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Given Charles Ryan plea deal, is being drunk a defense to crime? Nope