Felony Conviction from a Foreign Jurisdiction In Arizona

In State v. Clough, 171 Ariz. 217, 219, 829 P.2d 1263, 1265 (App. 1992) the Court relied on In re Marquardt in determining whether a felony conviction from a foreign jurisdiction satisfied the requirements of Arizona's former repetitive sentencing statute in light of the possibility that the offense could have been charged or designated a misdemeanor. Before it was renumbered as 13-703 and then amended in 2012, 13-604(I) permitted a conviction from a foreign jurisdiction to serve as a historical prior felony conviction for sentence-enhancement purposes only if the offense was such that, "if committed within this state would be punishable as a felony"; the analysis required "strict conformity between the elements of the foreign felony and the elements of some Arizona felony." Clough, 171 Ariz. at 219, 829 P.2d at 1265. Thus, the Court observed in Clough: Marquardt dictates that we look to the defendant's conduct in the foreign jurisdiction, and if that same conduct could, without taking into account the possibility that the prosecutor might charge the crime as a misdemeanor, be punishable in Arizona as a felony, then the prior conviction may be used to enhance the sentence. Id.