Public Access to Arizona Court Records

The State of Arizona is home to over 7.2 million people and has an area of 113,998 square miles. Arizona shares a border with Mexico and has a large immigrant population. The state capital is Phoenix, which is also the most populous single city in the state, with a population of over 1.6 million. However, the larger Phoenix Mesa Chandler Metropolitan Area, which includes the suburbs around Phoenix in Maricopa County, is the most populous metropolitan area in the southwest with a population of over 4 million.

As a result of being such a large and populous state, the Arizona state court system has over 1.4 million cases filed, heard, and processed each year. The Arizona Courts are made up of  three levels with varying degrees of jurisdiction: limited, general, and appellate. To manage the state’s caseload, most levels of the Arizona state court system have multiple courts handling different matters.

The Arizona Court System is dominated by two separate appellate courts. The highest appellate court in the state is the Arizona Supreme Court and the intermediate appellate court is the Arizona Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court of Arizona is the highest court in the state and is also known as the “court of last resort.” According to the Arizona Constitution, the Supreme Court’s primary role is to review appeals and to provide rules of procedure for all the courts in Arizona. The Court has discretionary jurisdiction, but must automatically review cases from trial courts that ended in a death sentence.

Additionally, the Arizona Supreme Court regulates activities of the State Bar of Arizona, oversees the admission of new attorneys to the practice of law, reviews charges of misconduct against attorneys, and has the authority to suspend or disbar them. It also serves as the final decision making body when the Commission on Judicial Conduct files disciplinary recommendations.

The Arizona Supreme Court has seven justices, serving for a term of six years. One justice is chosen to act as Chief Justice for a period of five years. The Chief Justice handles normal case work as well as dealing with court administration. To be eligible to be a justice on the Arizona Supreme Court, a person must be admitted to the practice of law in Arizona, be a resident of Arizona for the 10 years immediately before taking office, not hold any other political office or public employment, not hold office in any political party, and agree to retire at age 70.

The Arizona Court of Appeals, established in 1965, is the state’s intermediate appellate court. The Court of Appeals is the first level of appeal, so it has jurisdiction in all matters properly appealed from the Superior Courts in both civil and criminal matters. These Courts hear and decide cases in three-judge panels.

The Court of Appeals is divided into two divisions: Division One is located in Phoenix, has 16 judges, and covers Apache, Coconino, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Yavapai, and Yuma counties; and Division Two is located in Tucson, has six judges, and covers Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal, and Santa Cruz counties.

Judges are initially appointed by the governor and are subject to retention elections for terms of six years. To be eligible to be a Court of Appeals Judge, a person must be at least 30 years old, of good moral character, an Arizona resident, and admitted to the practice of law in Arizona for the five years immediately prior to taking office.

The number of matters brought before the Arizona Appellate Courts each year averages around 3,000. The Arizona Supreme Court has been involved with many important cases in U.S. jurisprudence, including Miranda v. Arizona and Clark v. Arizona.

The Arizona Superior Court is the state’s court of general jurisdiction. The Superior Court is one entity, with locations in each county. The Arizona State Constitution provides that the Superior Court has jurisdiction over cases in which exclusive jurisdiction is not vested by law in another court; equity cases involving title to or possession of real property; cases in which the amount in controversy is $1,000 or more; felonies and misdemeanors; forcible entry and detainer actions; proceedings in insolvency; nuisances; probate; divorce; naturalization; and any special cases or proceedings not otherwise provided for, and such other jurisdiction as may be provided by law.

Each county has at least one Superior Court Judge, and there are currently 180 judges handling cases across the state. In counties with large populations, the Superior Court may have one additional judge for every 30,000 county residents. To be eligible to be a Superior Court Judge, a person must be at least 30 years old, of good moral character, an Arizona resident, and admitted to the practice of law in Arizona for the five years immediately prior to taking office.

Counties with more than one Superior Court Judge have a special Juvenile Court, which has at least one assigned judge and handles all juvenile cases involving delinquency, incorrigibility, and dependency.

The Superior Court of Maricopa County operates the statewide Tax Court. The Tax Court has jurisdiction over all questions of law and fact relating to disputes involving the imposition, assessment or collection of Arizona taxes. A taxpayer may decide to use the small claims division of the Tax Court for cases concerning the valuation or classification of a home, or where the full cash value of all real and personal property does not exceed $300,000.

Arizona has two separate limited jurisdiction courts, consisting of Justice of the Peace Courts (JP Courts) and Municipal Courts.

The Arizona Justice of the Peace Courts, also known as Justice Courts, are state trial courts of limited jurisdiction. Justice Courts have jurisdiction over civil lawsuits, where the amount in dispute is $10,000 or less; landlord and tenant controversies; small claims cases, where the amount in dispute is $3,500 or less; civil and criminal traffic offenses; misdemeanors; and orders of protection.

Each county has at least one JP Court, and there are currently 85 precincts. These courts are each presided over by a Justice of the Peace. To be eligible to be a Justice of the Peace, a person must be a registered voter in Arizona, reside in the Justice Court precinct, and understand the English language.

Many incorporated cities or municipalities in Arizona have a Municipal Court, also known as a City Court or Magistrate Court. These courts share jurisdiction with the Justice Courts over violations of state law committed within their city or town boundaries.

Municipal Court Judges, or magistrates, can hear misdemeanor criminal traffic cases as well as civil traffic cases. These courts can issue orders of protection, injunctions prohibiting harassment, and search warrants. However, these judges do not hear civil lawsuits between citizens.

City charters or ordinances establish the qualifications of Municipal Court judges. Some cities do not require municipal court judges to be attorneys. Judges serve terms set by the city or town council, but their terms must be at least two years.

The Arizona State Commission on Judicial Conduct, created by Arizona State Constitution, is an independent state agency that investigates complaints of alleged unethical conduct by judicial officers and prosecutes, when appropriate, formal charges of judicial misconduct.

The Arizona State Constitution limits the Commission’s authority to impose sanctions. The only sanction the Commission can impose on its own is a public reprimand. In formal proceedings, the Commission can make recommendations to the Arizona Supreme Court, which can then determine the proper sanction, such as public censure, suspension, education, payment, or removal.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct has 11 members. The members of the Commission include: six judicial officers appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court, including two from the Court of Appeals, two from the Superior Court, one from the Justice Courts, and one from the Municipal Courts; two attorneys appointed by the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Arizona; and three citizens, appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Arizona Senate, who are not attorneys, judges, or retired judges.

The Court Services Division collects a wide range of statistics from all state court levels in Arizona, excluding federal and tribal court data.

The following statistics are some of the highlights from the 2021 Judicial Data Report:

• 1,446,987 cases were filed in Arizona courts in 2021.
• Criminal filings decreased 13.3% from 2020 to 2021.
• In 2021, over 576,000 cases were filed in the Arizona Justice Courts.
• Maricopa County has the busiest courts in Arizona, seeing over 200,000 cases each year.

UniCourt is your single source for state and federal court records, offering comprehensive court coverage and the most complete and accurate dataset available.

Everyday of the week, UniCourt collects all of the newly filed civil and criminal cases in the Arizona Courts we cover and lets you search through those new case filings in our CrowdSourced Library™. You can also use UniCourt to track state court litigation and get real-time case alerts sent directly to your inbox. Additionally, UniCourt empowers you to download court documents on-demand without ever having to login to a government court database, and gives you unlimited access to download millions of free state and federal court documents in our CrowdSourced Library™.

UniCourt provides you with access to several Arizona State Courts, including the largest county in the state, Maricopa County, with the Maricopa County Justice Courts and the Maricopa County Superior Courts.

Additionally, UniCourt gives you access to court records for all of the federal courts across the state of Arizona: the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

UniCourt’s industry-leading Legal Data APIs provide Enterprise users with on-demand, bulk access to structured data from Arizona state and federal courts. Our Legal Data as a Service (LDaaS) collects, organizes, standardizes, and normalizes court data from Arizona state courts and all federal courts, and makes it readily available via our UniCourt Enterprise API for business development, competitive intelligence, litigation strategy, and docket management.