Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services
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But the amounts will be small. And that's a good thing since, on the same day, the fines for driving while drunk also increase.
Other laws which take effect range from statutes which give protection from lawsuits to doctors and teachers to new statutes designed to crack down on those who try to use the Internet to steal someone's information.
All totaled, the Legislature approved close to 400 bills this session.
Gov. Janet Napolitano, however, vetoed 58 of them. And while most take effect 90 days after the end of the session - Aug. 12 - some already are in place and others have delayed enactments.
(See sidebar in the print edition of The Daily Dispatch)
Much of what becomes law deals with new crimes created by the Legislature. But there were a few exceptions.
For example, state lawmakers agreed, after years of lobbying, to create some new exemptions from current laws that make it a crime to possess any item with any amount of gunpowder. Right now, only caps for toy guns are legal.
This new law expands that to other items with small amounts of explosives, including many things that, in fact, already are being sold in Arizona. That includes party poppers where pulling a string on the end of a small paper bottle makes confetti fly out the other end, and "snakes'' which, when lit, produce an expanding trail of ash.
But legislators heeded complaints from various fire officials and refused to include sparklers in the list of permitted items.
Lawmakers also voted to limit who can testify as an expert witness in medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors.
Malpractice cases cannot proceed without expert witnesses. They tell a jury what is the accepted standard of care for a given procedure and, then, whether they believe the doctor on trial met that standard.
Sen. Robert Cannell, D-Yuma, a pediatrician, said some doctors will testify, for a fee, against anyone else. He said the new requirement for a plaintiff's doctor to have the same specialty and certification should cut down on that.
JoJene Mills, past president of the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association, said she believes this portion of the law will be found unconstitutional. She said deciding who can appear as a witness is solely the purview of judges.
No challenge is expected to the other part of the bill which says an apology by a doctor to a patient or family cannot later be used in court.
Another bill bans lawsuits against teachers who give bad grades to students. And related legislation requires school districts to come up with policies designed to deal with bullying.
The liquor measure creates an exemption from current laws which bar people from giving away alcoholic beverages.
Sarah Rosen, publicists for the Distilled Spirits Council said the real beneficiaries are companies that sell premium products. She said few consumers are willing to shell out up to $50 a bottle for something that they may not like.
The new law permits samples of three ounces of beer, one and a half ounces of wine or a half ounce of hard liquor. But the measure contains provisions designed to prevent abuse, ranging from limiting where in the store the samples can be offered to requiring retailers to give a 10-day notice to the Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.
On the other side of the equation, one new law requires police to impound the vehicles of those arrested for drunken driving. Another allows a judge to suspend the license of adults who give liquor to minors.
And yet another adds additional assessments ranging from $500 to $1,500 for those convicted of driving under the influence. The funds collected will be used to purchase stun guns, bullet-proof vests and other safety equipment for officers of the Department of Public Safety.
On related subjects, lawmakers agreed to let judges impose harsher sentences on criminals who use stun guns.
It also will be illegal to sell safety devices designed for use by public safety officers unless it has been independently tested to verify the claims of the manufacturer. This measure follows litigation filed by the Attorney General's Office against the nation's largest producer of bullet-proof vests alleging that they can fail.
On the high tech front, one law makes it illegal to send out an e-mail misrepresenting who is the sender.
That measure is designed to address "phishing,'' a practice where scammers get unsuspecting computer users to send personal information on the belief they are responding to a fraud warning from a bank or online retailer. But the information actually goes to a criminal who then can charge items to the victim or even drain a bank account.
A related bill makes it illegal to install "spyware'' on someone else's computer without that person's knowledge.
These programs can come through the Internet without the computer owner's knowledge. They can do everything from collect personally identifiable information to actually taking control of the machine.
In parallel legislation, lawmakers created a new crime and 3 1/2 year prison term for those who possess or make at least five fake IDs. But legislators, seeking to exempt teens who have phony identification cards so they can drink, said the harsher penalty applies only if the victim suffers a loss of at least $3,000.
Legislators also decided to increase the penalties that can be imposed on pipeline companies for safety violations. It now is
$10,000 per offense, up to $100,000; the new law boosts those to $100,000 and $1 million, respectively.
Lawmakers enacted several laws dealing with guns. One cuts in half the amount of training required to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon; the other permits schools to offer gun safety programs, including the handling and firing of weapons.
Three measures aimed at illegal immigration also made it onto the books.
One bans cities from using tax dollars to build or maintain work centers that facilitate the hiring of undocumented workers. A second creates new penalties for human smuggling while a third allows a judge to consider whether a person is in this country illegally when imposing a sentence for any other violation of state law.
Legislators also voted to allow bail to be denied in some cases
to illegal immigrants. But that measure must be approved next year by voters.
Other new laws that take effect Aug. 12 include:
- repealing statutes now on the books that provide a lesser penalty for rape if the victim is the spouse of the assailant;
- requiring tattoo parlors to dispose of their needles in the same way that medical facilities deal with biohazard waste;
- expanding the use of anti-racketeering laws to cover individuals or groups who engage in "environmental terrorism;''
- barring the use of public funds for human cloning research;
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