It is 7 a.m. in late May and the Arizona summer is heating up when Dwayne Moore hears people speaking outside his tent. Moore peeks his head out: standing outside is a Tucson police officer, saying he isn’t allowed to sleep in the strip of dirt of the Loop bike path where Moore had set up camp.
Within minutes of getting out of his tent, Moore is handcuffed. In the next hour, he loses most of his belongings when officers throw away his tent and two suitcases.
Most worryingly for Moore, a slender Black man who sports an earring and baseball cap most days, is a new charge on his record: criminal trespass in the third degree.
Criminal trespass charges hinge on two elements, according to Tucson criminal defense attorney Trevor Hill: First, that a person enters a location without authorization; and second, that they know they aren’t allowed to be there.
People sleeping outside in the city’s parks or on benches in public spaces were already at risk of being charged with criminal trespass.
An ordinance passed this spring further prohibits camping in Tucson’s washes. Violating it is a misdemeanor punishable by community service, fines up to $250, imprisonment up to 10 days, or probation for up to a year — and it could increase the number of people facing criminal trespass charges.
“It will allow us to take additional steps to help remove individuals from the wash areas. We make efforts to visit these areas to educate our unhoused community about the dangers of the monsoon season, and this will also give us the ability to make arrests when necessary,” Tucson Police Department public information officer Richard Gradillas said.
Moore had his first hearing in June. That morning, along with some 15 people in Tucson’s misdemeanor court for theft and other charges, there were three other people charged with criminal trespass.
His second hearing, set for the end of July, was canceled and the charges against him were dropped at the request of the prosecutor, his court docket said.
“I feel pretty good,” said Moore, grinning as he walked into the morning sunshine outside Tucson’s court. Instead of spending the next hour on a hard bench waiting to speak with a judge, he went to grab breakfast with a mutual aid volunteer who attended court with him.
Moore avoided fines or fees for his criminal trespass charge, but he remains homeless — making it likely he’ll be caught sleeping on city property again. Missing a court date can trigger a warrant and potential jail time, turning even a low-level citation into high stakes.
Arizona Luminaria spoke to two local attorneys about criminal trespass charges in local courts. Here’s what you need to know.
Right to a lawyer
Even though the possibility of jail time is included in the text of the wash ordinance, people charged with misdemeanors (which include criminal trespass) are not entitled to a court-appointed attorney.
Every criminal offense in Arizona carries at least the possibility of jail time, said Hill. Whether a person ends up in jail depends in part on the prosecutor asking for jail time. “With misdemeanors, unless the prosecution is actively seeking jail time, or unless there’s mandatory jail time required by the statute, most people aren’t entitled to a public defender,” he said.
“It is true that more common than not there is no lawyer representing the defendant,” said Joel Chorny, a criminal defense attorney in Tucson who works with clients for hire but also contracts with Pima County and the federal government in some public defense cases. If jail time does end up on the table, then the court must legally offer counsel.
Police officers are often the first step
Each public official that a homeless person encounters while facing a criminal trespass charge can influence how their case moves through the legal system.
City and county law enforcement are often the first point of contact. Under the city’s existing Homeless Encampment Protocol, which can be initiated by a public complaint by phone or through an online reporting tool, encampments are assessed in three tiers, with the third being “high problem encampments,” and some encampments tagged for immediate removal.
An encampment is then removed by city workers or local police, and officials will often put up a sign saying anyone who returns to the area will be charged with trespassing. Between October 27, 2022 and April 30, 2025 the city created 5,021 cases related to encampments.
It is then up to an individual police officer to decide whether to cite someone for trespassing or arrest them. During a May joint effort by Pima County, service providers and Tucson police to reroute people from jail into housing or other support, officers made 66 contacts and 39 arrests.
Tucson Police Department’s Lieutenant Matt Brady told Arizona Luminaria the goal that day was to achieve a “continuum of accountability, a continuum of care.”
Brady said he wanted to base the work on “innovation and compassion, not just enforcing criminal codes but funding people’s success.” That, he said, required “making adjustments to community needs.”
“Being unsheltered is not a crime,” Brady added.
Prosecutors play a large role
The next important step is how a prosecutor chooses to charge an individual. “Even if a police officer brings them a case that is pristine, they can decide not to pursue it,” said Chorny. “An unsung but crucial element of the criminal system is discretion, and different players have different types of discretion.”
For prosecutors, that means choosing how to charge an individual and when to offer them a plea deal versus going to a trial. “A lot of cases are dispensed with well before they reach the courtroom,” Chorny said. “That discretion is a very important safety valve in the system.”
At any time, however, that discretion could also mean a harsher charge.
“If I have 15 convictions for criminal trespass in the past, and a prosecutor decides ‘enough is enough, I really want to push for jail time;’ or a judge decides ‘I need to go spend some time in jail to effectively think about what I’ve been doing,’ the court could impose that jail time,” Hill said. “It’s just not super common, but it could happen.”
Missing a court date
One key part of that dynamic is that judges can issue a bench warrant for arrest when someone fails to show up for a court hearing, allowing police to arrest the person upon contact.
If they aren’t able to pay bail, which many homeless people don’t have the money to do, they could remain incarcerated until their next hearing. “It’s a problem that asymmetrically impacts the poor community,” Chorny said.
For someone who doesn’t have a phone, struggles with mental illness or whose executive functioning difficulties mean they aren’t always able to keep track of time, spending time in jail becomes a risk.
In that case, a relatively low-level misdemeanor charge could lead to a stay in a jail that has well documented health and safety issues.
To resolve a warrant with Tucson City Court, people can report to the Public Services lobby, Room 104, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday at 255 W. Alameda St.
Being unhoused makes court access harder
Since June, Moore has had his phone stolen once, and his bag with his medications and his remaining belongings stolen another time — while he was out charging his new phone.
These days, he’s sleeping in an abandoned building near downtown.
From their years working in the criminal justice system, both Hill and Chorny see the logistical demands of the criminal justice system as particularly difficult for people that live outside.
Hill started his career exclusively representing indigent people moving through the court system at the Pima County Public Defender’s office.
“It is a consistent tragedy, honestly, because you will have people that are unhoused, that don’t have resources, that don’t have a phone to set a calendar reminder, that don’t have ready access to electricity or or a ride,” he said. “Any time we get somebody involved in the criminal justice system we are creating difficulties for them in their day-to-day life, right? And having them come to court, getting them in the court can be really really difficult.”
City officials who voted for the wash ordinance said they were concerned about safety in washes during flooding periods, and said even in the best of times that washes weren’t fit places for people to live.
“I do feel a clear mandate from Ward 5 to support this measure not as a rejection of unhoused individuals but out of a belief that no one should live in a wash or park,” Ward 5 council member Rocque Perez, who voted for the measure, said at the June meeting where the ordinance passed.
For Hill, he says many people don’t have another option for where to stay, meaning he doesn’t expect their behavior leading to criminal trespass charges to significantly change.
“Do I believe that this kind of ordinance will meaningfully change where people are staying? I personally don’t think so,” Hill said. “I can’t imagine there’s a large population of people that are staying in the wash because that’s their preferred place to live, right?”
Chorny said he wants people to understand that homelessness is rarely a choice, making it difficult to avoid the charges that often come with being unhoused.
“Homelessness is not policed to help the unhoused, it’s policed to help the capital owners who don’t want the homeless around,” he said. “A better solution has to exist than tearing people’s tents apart and threatening them with jail time, and destabilizing an already unstable existence.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
