State ex rel. Collins v. Superior Court

In State ex rel. Collins v. Superior Court, 142 Ariz. 280, 689 P.2d 539 (1984), the supreme court suggested that subsection (H) applied to the sequence of the commission of offenses combined for trial as well as to the sequence of convictions. In that case, the State consolidated two separate criminal charges against the defendant for purposes of indictment and trial pursuant to subsection (H). Id. at 281, 689 P.2d at 540. Of the two different charges that were to be concurrently tried, the State sought to have the charge that was committed first designated as a prior conviction for the crime that was committed second. Id. The Collins court noted that subsection (H) provided for consolidated trials; it also recognized the previous dicta in Hannah which stated that in such cases, either conviction could constitute an historical prior conviction for the other. Id. While it was not necessary to the decision in Collins, the court then suggested that, when charges were consolidated for trial, subsection (H) also authorized a subsequently committed crime to constitute a prior conviction to a first crime so long as the charges were concurrently tried and there was a conviction for that subsequent crime. Id. at 282, 689 P.2d at 541. "We believe subsection (H) provides . . . a prior conviction may be used to enhance a subsequent conviction even though the prior conviction was for an offense which occurred after the occurrence of the offense which formed the basis of the subsequent conviction." Id. Collins was the only Arizona case to suggest that a subsequently committed felony could nevertheless constitute a "prior conviction."