SIERRA VISTA - Nearly 50 judicial and law enforcement officials from around Cochise County met here Wednesday to hear plans for implementing Proposition 100, which denies bond to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes.

Prop. 100, passed by Arizona voters last November, amended the state constitution so that undocumented people charged with class 1, 2, 3 and 4 felonies, as well as aggravated DUI, cannot be released on bond. In response to the new law, Ruth McGregor, chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, issued an order earlier this month detailing a procedure for its implementation and set a May 7 deadline for having the procedure in place.

First, McGregor modified a form that law enforcement personnel use to provide courts with information about defendants.

The form now specifically asks whether a defendant is accused of a serious crime, whether he or she is in the United States illegally, and what evidence supports the allegations.

If a judge agrees that probable cause exists on both criteria, McGregor said, an evidentiary hearing must be held within 24 hours.

"The big hurdle we have to overcome is the short, very limited period of time we have to set the evidentiary hearing," Superior Court Judge Conlogue told the attendees at Wednesday's meeting.

Within those 24 hours, Conlogue said, victims will have to be notified, as will attorneys and, if necessary, translators.

In an effort to make the process more logistically feasable, all evidentiary hearings will be held in Justice Court 1 in Bisbee, next to the jail and down the road from the offices of the Superior Court, county attorney, public defender and legal defender.

Several current and former law enforcement officers expressed concern that local police will now be responsible for inquiring about a suspect's immigration status - something they had previously been told not to do.

"Yeah, you're going to need to inquire," Conlogue said.

Ruben Saavedra, a sheriff's deputy from Douglas, noted that local cops will likely have to ask for information from the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement - two federal agencies that are not always easy to get information from.

And Ron Hager, bureau chief for the Sheriff's Office, wanted clues as to what information judges will want in order to determine that a person is in the U.S. illegally.

"We will deal with whatever evidence is presented by the state, or by the defense," Conlogue said.

However, one piece of evidence that won't be good enough for probable cause, said Wallace Hoggatt, presiding Superior Court judge, is foreign citizenship.

"The fact that someone is a citizen of a country other than the United States is not evidence that they are here illegally," Hoggatt said.

The judges also pointed out that even if police cannot prove within 24 hours that a suspect is in the country illegally, it does not mean that the suspect will be set free.

They can still be jailed pending a payment of bond.

County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer noted that most of the illegal immigrants who commit class 1, 2, 3 and 4 felonies in Cochise County can't afford to post bond and remain in jail until their case is resolved.

"A lot of people think we're jumping through hoops for no good purpose," he said of the new law.

As for the financial cost of Prop. 100 for the local legal system, Karen Ferrara, administrator of the Superior Court, said it was too early to tell.

"We've had changes in the past that we expected to be expensive, but weren't," Ferrara said. "So we'll have to wait and see."

Mike Politi, the county's legal defender and indigent defense coordinator, believes the local impact of Prop. 100 will depend largely on the law enforcement agencies charged with implementing it.

"It comes down to the agencies and how much of a priority they want to make it," Politi said, citing Maricopa County as an example where the county attorney and sheriff have made a point of aggressively prosecuting illegal immigrants.

"Will rural counties on the border be able to do that? That's up to them," he said.