Arizona Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

The Legal System

Arizona's law rests on two systems at once. Congress created the Territory of Arizona by the Organic Act of February 24, 1863, and the Territory's first code, the Howell Code of 1864 (named for the federal judge who drafted it), adopted the common law of England — judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature — as the rule of decision in the Territory's courts¹. Arizona has been a common-law state from that point forward. It became a state on February 14, 1912.

The other system is Spanish and Mexican civil law, which governed the region before the United States acquired it — the land north of the Gila River by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the land south of it by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853–54. Arizona kept one large piece of it: community property, the rule that most of what a husband and wife acquire during a marriage is owned equally by both of them. Property one spouse brought into the marriage, or later received by gift or inheritance, stayed that spouse's separate property.

The Howell Code had followed the common law here instead. It gave a widow dower — the use, for the rest of her life, of one-third of the land her husband had owned during the marriage² — and gave a widower curtesy, the use for his life of the land his wife had inherited³. Each was a life interest: the survivor could use the land and take its income but did not own it and could not leave it to anyone. The second territorial legislature replaced that arrangement by an act approved December 30, 1865, which amended the Howell Code's chapters on marriage, married women, and divorce and repealed its chapter on dower outright⁴. From the beginning of 1866 the community property system governed marital property, and dower and curtesy played no further part in Arizona estates. For a short window — 1864 into January 1866 — a widow's dower and a widower's curtesy did apply, and an estate settled in those two years may show them.

One further feature shapes the records. Probate — wills, estates, and guardianships — sat in the county probate court in territorial days and passed to the Superior Court of each county at statehood in 1912, while deeds were recorded by the county recorder.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Full majority was 21, for women and men alike, throughout the period⁵. A person under 21 was a minor, and the age of majority for a woman was the same as for a man. The one age that differed by sex was the age to marry, which was lower for a girl than a boy — see Marriage, below. A married 17-year-old was still a minor.

A minor could own property; what the law limited was the minor's power to part with it. A minor's contract — including a deed — was voidable: it held good until the minor chose to undo it, which he could do on reaching 21. For necessaries suited to his situation, such as food, clothing, or lodging, a minor was bound⁶. A minor's land was therefore ordinarily sold for him by a guardian under a court order rather than by the minor himself.

One exception had appeared by the 1940s. A lawfully married person of 18 or over held the community-property rights of an adult⁷.

Marriage

Age, and the parental-consent rule

Under the territorial law a boy could marry at 18 and a girl at 16 on their own account. Below those ages the marriage still took place, but only with the consent of the parent or guardian having charge of the minor, and an official who joined an underage couple without that consent committed a misdemeanor⁸.

By the code in force in the last decades covered here, 18 and 16 had become firm minimums rather than consent thresholds. A superior court judge could allow a younger marriage where one of the parties was already a parent or was about to become one, with the consent of the minor's parent or guardian, and not where the racial-restriction law barred the match⁹. Parental consent had by then become a separate requirement reaching higher up: a license could issue without a parent's consent only where the man was 21 and the woman 18, and below those ages written consent had to be filed with the clerk, who committed a misdemeanor if he issued the license without it¹⁰. A license file for a young couple in that period should therefore hold a parent's written consent.

Marriage required a ceremony

Territorial law treated marriage as a civil contract to which the consent of the parties was essential, and the ceremony had to be performed by the governor, a judge or justice of the peace, or a clergyman or licensed preacher. Within three months the officiant sent a certificate of the marriage to the recorder of the county where it took place, and the recorder entered it in a marriage book kept for the purpose¹¹. That book is the county marriage record for the territorial years.

The 1913 Civil Code settled the point directly, in a section its compiler marked as new: the common-law rule that a marriage could be contracted by agreement of the parties without a ceremony was abrogated, and no marriage was valid unless a license issued and the marriage was solemnized by someone authorized to do it — or by someone at least one party believed in good faith to be so authorized¹². From that year an informal Arizona union was not a marriage, so the record to look for is a license and the officiant's return. A marriage that was valid where it was made was valid in Arizona from the territorial period onward¹³ — so a couple who lived together in a state that recognized common-law marriage may be married in Arizona's eyes.

The restrictions on marriage

A marriage between close relatives was void from the Territory's first code: parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, and uncles with nieces or aunts with nephews¹⁴. A marriage made while an earlier spouse was living was void as well.

The restriction that reaches deepest into Arizona records is the ban on interracial marriage. The Howell Code declared the marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto illegal and void, and punished both the couple and the officiant with a fine of $100 to $10,000 or imprisonment of three months to ten years¹⁵. The act of December 30, 1865 widened the bar to marriages of white persons with negroes, mulattoes, Indians, or Mongolians¹⁶. The rule passed into the codes in those terms — the 1913 Civil Code voided all marriages of persons of Caucasian blood, or their descendants, with negroes, Mongolians, or Indians, and their descendants¹⁶. The list grew again between the wars. An act approved 26 February 1931 rewrote the section to void the marriage of a person of Caucasian blood, or their descendants, with Negroes, Hindus, Mongolians, members of the Malay race, or Indians, and their descendants. The same act added first cousins to the relatives who could not marry, and extended the whole prohibition to children born outside marriage and their relations¹⁷. A 1942 amendment dropped Indians from the list, leaving a Caucasian barred from marrying a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu, and validated, from the moment they were made, marriages already contracted that the change now allowed¹⁸. The bar ended in 1962, when the legislature rewrote the section to prohibit marriages within the degrees of kinship only, leaving no racial restriction in it at all. Three years earlier a Pima County superior court judge had held the bar unconstitutional and ordered a license issued to the couple who had been refused one; the appeal from that ruling was dismissed once the amendment passed¹⁹. For a couple caught by this law no valid Arizona marriage record will exist for the years it was in force; look instead for a marriage in a state that allowed it.

Marriages made under Native custom on the reservations were governed by tribal and federal law rather than by the territorial or state marriage statute, and will not appear in the county license books.

Property Ownership

Men and land

A free man could acquire, hold, and convey land in Arizona, and could own it at any age; the age that mattered was the age at which he could deal in it himself. At 21 a man held full power over his own land — to buy it, sell it, mortgage it, and convey it by deed. A deed he gave before 21 was voidable, so he could undo it when he came of age⁶. A married man dealt with his own separate property — what he brought to the marriage or received by gift or inheritance — exactly as a single man did, and his separate-property deed carried his signature alone. Community land was different, and is treated below.

One racial restriction fell on land ownership, and it was aimed at Asian immigrants. The restriction began at statehood, when the law barred any person who was not a citizen and had not declared an intention to become one from acquiring land. The alien land law of 1917, revised in 1921, recast it around naturalization: it barred aliens ineligible to citizenship — under the naturalization law of the day, chiefly Japanese and Chinese immigrants — from acquiring title to land except so far as a treaty allowed, capped their leases at five years, and let an alien widow or heir take land by inheritance on condition that she sell it within five years or forfeit it to the state by escheat²⁰. Mining lands were excepted. A Japanese or Chinese family's land in this period may therefore stand in the name of a citizen child or a corporation.

Women and land: separate property and community property

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married, and on whether the land was hers separately or belonged to the community.

A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could.

A married woman's separate property was hers, but for most of the territorial period her husband managed it. Under the act of December 30, 1865 a wife's own property remained hers and was not liable for her husband's debts; she was to draw up a signed inventory of it and record it with the recorder of her county, which put the world on notice of her title and kept the listed property safe from seizure for his debts. The husband had the management and control of it during the marriage, and it could be sold or mortgaged only by a written instrument signed by both of them and acknowledged by her on an examination taken separate and apart from her husband — a privy examination, meant to show she was acting freely and not under his pressure²¹. A territorial deed of a wife's separate land therefore carries both signatures and a separate certificate for her, and a recorded inventory of separate property may exist alongside it.

By the 1901 code the rule had reversed. A married woman of 18 or over had the sole and exclusive control of her separate property; she could sell it, mortgage it, convey it, or leave it by will in the same manner and with like effect as if she were unmarried, her husband did not join in the deed, and the property was not liable for his debts. The rule stood in those terms through the code in force at the end of the period²². The privy examination went first: by the 1901 code a married woman's acknowledgment could be taken in the same form as if she were single, "and without any examination separate and apart from her husband"²². So a deed of a wife's own land carries both signatures and a separate certificate for her in the territorial years, and her signature alone by the twentieth century.

When a wife signed a deed

Because dower had been abolished in 1865, a wife's signature on an Arizona deed was never about releasing a dower right. It was about the community, and the rule tightened over time. Under the act of 1865 the husband had the entire management and control of the common property, with the same absolute power to dispose of it that he had over his own separate estate, so he could sell community land alone²³. By the Revised Statutes of 1901 a conveyance or mortgage of community real estate was invalid unless the wife joined in it, the one exception being an unpatented mining claim — a claim not yet granted by the federal government. Community personal property the husband could still dispose of alone. Both rules carried forward through the 1913 and 1939 codes²⁴, and the Supreme Court voided a husband's sole conveyance of community land under them²⁵.

The working rule is simple. A deed of the husband's separate land carries his signature alone throughout. A deed of community land carries both spouses' signatures from 1901 onward, and a single-signature community deed after 1901 is either a defect or a sign that the land was separate — either way, worth investigating.

The homestead had its own signature rule. The head of a family could hold a homestead exempt from forced sale for debt up to $4,000, and where the homestead was carved out of the wife's separate property she had to join in the claim²⁶.

Children and land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Conveying it was the constraint: a minor's deed was voidable, so he could set it aside on reaching 21, and a buyer took the risk. A minor's land was therefore sold for him by a guardian under an order of the probate court, and the guardian's sale file records the transaction.

Deed formalities and witnesses

An Arizona conveyance had to be in writing and signed by the grantor — the person giving up the land. It then had to be acknowledged, or proved and certified: the grantor appeared before a judge, a court clerk, a justice of the peace, or a similar officer, who endorsed a certificate on the deed itself. The officer could take that acknowledgment only if he knew the person before him to be the one whose name was on the deed, or if a credible witness swore to it. A husband and wife could convey the wife's land by their joint deed just as she could have conveyed it alone had she been unmarried²⁷. The deed was then recorded with the county recorder. Recording is what makes a deed good against a later buyer: an unrecorded conveyance was void as against creditors and later purchasers who paid value without notice of it, while between the parties themselves and their heirs, and against anyone who knew of it or paid nothing, it stood good unrecorded²⁷. No statute set an age for the witness who proved a deed — the test was credibility, so the officer had to find the witness worthy of belief — though in practice witnesses were adults, since one might have to appear years later to prove the deed.

Native people, Mexican grantees, and aliens

Native land was largely federal business. Land held in trust for Native people or their nations, and land allotted to individuals under federal law, was governed by federal statute, and an individual's power to convey it was federally restricted rather than set by Arizona law.

Land granted to families while the region was Spanish or Mexican was protected when the United States took over. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase promised to respect existing property, and Spanish and Mexican land grants were confirmed through a federal process, the Court of Private Land Claims. Where a family's title runs back to a Mexican grant, the confirming document is federal rather than a county deed.

Aliens generally could buy and hold land in Arizona; the alien land law cut aliens ineligible to citizenship out of that right, as above²⁰.

Inheritance

A person who died without a will died intestate, and a statute divided the estate. In Arizona the division turned first on whether the property was community or separate.

Community property and separate property

Under the Howell Code, land a person had not left by will passed in equal shares to his children, the children of a child who had died taking that child's share. Where he left no children or grandchildren it went to his widow for the rest of her life, and after her death to his father. A widow with children took no share of the land itself — she took her dower, the life use of one-third²⁸. From 1866 the act of December 30, 1865 governed everything the couple had built during the marriage: on the death of either spouse one-half of the common property went to the survivor and the other half to the deceased's descendants, and where there were no descendants the survivor took the whole, subject in each case to the debts²⁹.

The code in force in the last decades covered here kept the community rule and set out the shares of separate property as follows³⁰:

So a surviving Arizona spouse ordinarily kept at least half of everything the couple had built during the marriage, and often all of it. For a family reconstruction, sort the estate into community and separate property before working out who took what. Those separate-property shares were not new in 1939: the 1901 code set them in the same terms, so they governed from the turn of the century onward³⁰.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor inherited immediately, but the inheritance was managed for him by a guardian under the probate court's eye and under bond — a promise, backed by others who would pay if he failed, to account for the money. The guardian invested the estate, accounted to the court, and handed it over, with a receipt, when the ward came of age. That final settlement at 21 is one of the most valuable documents in Arizona genealogy: it dates the ward's majority and so approximates a birth year, and it often shows a female ward's married name.

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property. Watch in particular for a guardian appointed for a child whose father is alive: that usually means the child inherited from someone else — a grandparent, an uncle, the mother's family — and the estate needed a guardian even though the father was living.

For a child under 14 the court appointed the guardian, naming the father or the mother if fit. A parent could also name a guardian by will: the father with the mother's written consent, either parent where the other was dead or unable to consent, and, for a child born outside marriage, the mother³¹. At 14 a minor could nominate his own guardian, subject to the court's approval³² — so a guardianship in which the child does the choosing is evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year. Guardianship ended at 21.

Children born outside marriage

Arizona went further than almost any state of its day. By an act effective March 17, 1921, every child born of natural parents was the legitimate child of those parents, entitled to support and education as if born in wedlock and to inherit from both natural parents and their kindred in the same manner as a child born in wedlock³³. From 1921, then, a child's inheritance from a father did not depend on the parents' marriage, on a later marriage, or on a formal legitimation. Before that act such a child could inherit from the mother. Where paternity was disputed it was settled in a bastardy proceeding against the reputed father, who was charged with the child's support to majority, and that file names him.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was full age, 21. From the Howell Code onward a will had to be in writing and signed by the maker, and signed in the maker's presence by two or more competent witnesses. A married woman could leave by will any property held in her own right³⁴. Under the code in force in the last decades covered here a person who had been lawfully married could make a will while still a minor³⁵. The 1901 code kept those requirements and added one of its own: the two attesting witnesses had to be above the age of 14. The same code admitted the holographic will — one written entirely in the maker's own hand — for which no witnesses were needed at all³⁶. These handwritten wills are common in the Arizona record.

An executor had to be 21. Where a will named a minor, the court granted letters of administration with the will annexed, or let a competent co-executor act, until the minor came of full age and could join³⁷. So the letters — the court's written authority to settle the estate — name the person who actually did the work.

A will witness had to be competent, and from 1901 above the age of 14. A gift in the will to a witness who signed it was void unless two other competent witnesses had signed as well, which is why the name of someone who takes under a will rarely appears among its witnesses³⁴. One community-property limit runs through every Arizona will: neither spouse could give away by will more than his or her own half of the community property³⁸.

Taxation

The tax that reached individuals most broadly was the property tax, on real and personal property. Arizona had one from its territorial beginnings. An act approved 18 February 1871 taxed the assessed value of all property in the Territory that the act did not exempt, and let each county's board of supervisors add county taxes on the same property; it took the place of the Howell Code's chapter on finance and taxation. At statehood in 1912 the new legislature adopted the pre-existing territorial property-tax laws³⁹. The property tax fell on the owner of the property whatever the owner's age, so it marks no age milestone; a tax list is still useful because it places a named owner in a county in a given year.

Arizona also taxed the person rather than the property — a capitation tax, charged by the head. Under the revenue act of 1871 every male inhabitant over 21 and under 60, unless the law exempted him, owed a poll tax of three dollars, paid to the assessor between the first Monday of March and the first Monday of September. A man who let that date pass owed five dollars instead, and the county collector could enforce it whether or not his name stood on the tax roll. The county treasurer had numbered poll-tax receipts printed each year, in a style changed annually. The 1901 code kept the same ages and set the tax at two dollars and fifty cents a year, payable to the county of residence and collected with the taxes on personal property, and it excepted Indians from the charge⁴⁰. So a man came onto the poll list at 21 and dropped off it at 60.

The road tax was separate and was worked off as often as it was paid. Under the territorial act the supervisors levied it on all able-bodied men along with the property taxes, and every able-bodied man paid six dollars more or, at his option, worked two days on the road. By the 1901 code every able-bodied male resident over 21 and under 50 who lived outside an incorporated town or city had to give two days' labor on the highways of his district, in person or by a substitute, when the road overseer called for it⁴⁰. Payment of a poll tax was also tied to a man's registration to vote. A poll or road tax list is valuable because it names men who owned no property, which makes it a census substitute.

Courts, Juries, and Testimony

Jury service

The territorial law set six tests, and a man had to meet all of them. He had to be a citizen of the United States; an elector of the county he was summoned in, meaning someone entitled to vote there; over 21 and under 60; in possession of his natural faculties; never convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; and able to follow the proceedings in English. Judges and other civil officers, attorneys, ministers and priests, teachers, physicians, jail and hospital keepers, and boat and ferry men were exempt from serving. The 1901 code restated the qualification and dropped the elector test, and in that form it stood for the rest of the period: a juror was a male citizen of the United States who had lived in the county six months, sober, intelligent, of sound mind and good moral character, over 21, able to understand English, and clear of any felony charge or conviction. Dropping the elector test mattered in practice — the Supreme Court held that a man who had not yet acquired an elector's qualifications could still sit on a jury. The list of those who could claim exemption had grown by then to include editors, teachers, druggists, undertakers, telegraph operators, railroad and express men, and firemen in the larger towns — and anyone over 60. Arizona set no land-owning qualification of the kind that ran through older English jury law⁴¹.

Women and minorities on the jury

Jury service was limited to men until 1945, though Arizona women had won the vote in 1912. In 1945 the legislature made women eligible for all jury duty, without compelling them to serve⁴². From that year a woman could sit on an Arizona jury.

Native residents were kept off Arizona juries by a different mechanism: jurors had to be electors, and the suffrage article of the state constitution denied the vote to persons under guardianship, a phrase Arizona applied to reservation Indians. The state Supreme Court held in 1948 that it reached only a guardianship established by a court, so that Native residents could vote⁴³. Until that decision a Native resident was in practice ineligible for jury service; after it, the elector bar fell away.

Age of criminal responsibility

The line moved twice. Under the Howell Code a child under 14 could not be found guilty of any crime, and a child was treated as of sound mind at 14, or earlier if the child knew the difference between good and evil. The 1901 code set the line at 10, so that a child under 10 could not be convicted unless there was clear proof the child knew the act was wrong, and the 1913 penal code returned it to 14⁴⁴.

From statehood a second rule overrode all of this. The constitution of 1912 gave the superior court exclusive original jurisdiction over every child under 18 who was dependent, neglected, incorrigible, or delinquent, or who was accused of a crime, and the legislature carried that grant into the statutes at once⁴⁵. The practical line from 1912 was 18: a person under 18 accused of a crime was dealt with as a delinquent by the juvenile court, a division of the Superior Court, rather than tried as an adult. A child's case in this period is therefore a juvenile matter in the Superior Court's records rather than an ordinary criminal file, and those files are ordinarily closed to the public.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate the facts; the judge decided competency witness by witness, and children did testify. By the twentieth-century codes the limits that remained turned on relationship rather than age. Neither spouse was generally competent to testify for or against the other without consent, with exceptions in suits between the spouses and in prosecutions for abandonment, non-support, bigamy, and like offenses⁴⁶.

The great exception in Arizona's early law was racial. Among the Howell Code's rules on who could be a witness in criminal cases stood a bar on any black or mulatto, Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic person giving evidence for or against a white person; a person with one-fourth or more negro blood counted as a mulatto, and one with one-half Indian blood as an Indian⁴⁷. The practical consequence was severe: a non-white resident could not testify to protect his person or property against a white party. The bar was gone by the 1901 code, whose evidence provisions carry nothing of the kind, and competency thereafter turned on the general tests, applied to all persons alike.

(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)

Sources & Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Constitution of the State of Arizona. 1912, with amendments. Art. VII, § 2 (qualifications of electors, and the exclusion of persons under guardianship on which the jury cases turned). Official text. Arizona State Legislature. https://www.azleg.gov/const/ (accessed 22 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Arizona Code, 1939: Containing the General Laws of Arizona, Annotated. 6 vols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1940. The code in force through the last decades covered here; the source of most section numbers cited above. Volume 1 carries the Political Code, volume 2 Civil Procedure (including juries, ch. 37), volume 3 probate and the Penal Code, volumes 4 and 5 the General Laws, and volume 6 the parallel reference tables and index. Digital images. Arizona Memory Project. https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38237 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Bashford, Coles, comp. The Compiled Laws of the Territory of Arizona, Including the Howell Code and the Session Laws from 1864 to 1871, Inclusive. Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1871. The Howell Code as amended, and the text of the act of 30 December 1865 on marriage, married women, and community property. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp682117253 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Howell Code, Adopted by the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona. Prescott: Office of the Arizona Miner, 1865. The first territorial code: reception of the common law, dower and curtesy, wills and executors, descent, marriage, and the racial bar on testimony. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp680529914 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Code of Arizona, 1928. Codified and revised with historical data by F. C. Struckmeyer, Code Commissioner; annotated by Bancroft-Whitney. Phoenix, Ariz.: The Manufacturing Stationers, 1928. Digital images. Arizona Memory Project. https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38235 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913: Civil Code. Compiled by Samuel L. Pattee. Phoenix, Ariz.: McNeil Co., 1913. Digital images. Arizona Memory Project. https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38228 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913: Penal Code. Compiled by Samuel L. Pattee. Phoenix, Ariz.: McNeil Co., 1913. Digital images. Arizona Memory Project. https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38231 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of Arizona Territory. Columbia, Mo.: Press of E. W. Stephens, 1901. The middle of the period: descent and distribution, wills, guardianship, conveyances and recording, juries, the poll and road taxes, and the Penal Code. Digital images. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433009076062 (accessed 22 July 2026). Also digitized by the University of Arizona Cracchiolo Law Library, https://ualawlib.omeka.net/items/show/1375.

Session Laws

• Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona. The territorial session laws, including the revenue act of 1871 and the juvenile court act of 1907. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp506296306 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Session Laws of Arizona. The state session laws. Cited above by chapter: 1912, Regular Session, ch. 71 (alien ownership) and First Special Session, ch. 63 (juvenile jurisdiction); 1913, Third Special Session, ch. 16 (juvenile courts); 1917, ch. 43 (alien land law); 1921, ch. 29 (alien land law revised) and ch. 114 (legitimation); 1942, First Special Session, ch. 12 (marriage bar amended); 1945, ch. 50 (women eligible for jury duty); 1947, ch. 107 (community-property rights of married minors). Also cited: 1931, ch. 17 (the marriage bar rewritten) and 1962, Second Regular Session, ch. 14 (the racial restriction removed). Session Laws of Arizona, 1945, ch. 50, and 1947, ch. 107 are cited above as the U.S. Women's Bureau cited them in 1949, not from the acts themselves; 1921, ch. 29 rests on the codes alone. All three should be read in these volumes. Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records; part of the Historic Arizona Statutes collection, Arizona Memory Project, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov (accessed 22 July 2026).

Court Cases

• Blackman v. Blackman. 45 Ariz. 374, 43 P.2d 1011 (1935).
• Estate of Silva. 32 Ariz. 573, 261 P. 40 (1927).
• Harrison v. Laveen. 67 Ariz. 337, 196 P.2d 456 (1948). Opinion. CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3254299/harrison-v-laveen/ (accessed 22 July 2026).
• La Tourette v. La Tourette. 15 Ariz. 200, 137 P. 426 (1914).
• Lawrence v. State. 29 Ariz. 247, 240 P. 863 (1926).
• Nowland v. Vinyard. 43 Ariz. 27, 29 P.2d 139 (1934).
• Porter v. Hall. 34 Ariz. 308, 271 P. 411 (1928).
• Rundle v. Winters. 38 Ariz. 239, 298 P. 929 (1931).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Arizona Daily Star. "Honors for 2 Who Fought Interracial Marriage Ban." https://tucson.com/news/local/honors-for-2-who-fought-interracial-marriage-ban/article_e7b1cdf1-eea3-5e4b-83f0-72b25130be57.html (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Arizona Department of Revenue. Overview of the Arizona Property Tax System. PDF. https://azdor.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/PROPERTY_OverviewAZPTSystem.pdf (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Custodian of the territorial and state statutes and of the state's record holdings; its research guides identify the county probate, land, and marriage series described above. https://azlibrary.gov/ (accessed 22 July 2026).
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Arizona." County-level guides to probate, land, marriage, and tax records. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Arizona (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Foster, William E. "A Study of the Wyoming Miscegenation Statutes." 10 Wyoming Law Journal 131 (1956). Cites the Arizona sections as they stood in 1939. https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlj/vol10/iss2/5 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Arizona. Bulletin of the Women's Bureau No. 157-2 (Revised). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. Law stated as of 1 January 1948, on the Arizona Code of 1939. PDF. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-02-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 22 July 2026).

Citations

1. The Howell Code, Adopted by the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona (Prescott: Office of the Arizona Miner, 1865), § 7: "The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to, or inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States, or the bill of rights or laws of this Territory, is hereby adopted, and shall be the rule of decision in all the courts of this Territory"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529914 : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
2. Howell Code, ch. XXVII ("Of Estates in Dower"), § 1: the widow "shall be entitled to dower, or the use during her natural life of one-third part of all the lands whereof her husband was seized of an estate of inheritance, at any time during the marriage, unless she is lawfully barred thereof." ↩
3. Howell Code, ch. XXVII, § 32: where husband and wife were seized in her right of an estate of inheritance, on her death the husband "shall … hold the lands for his life, as tenant thereof by the curtesy," unless she left issue by a former husband to whom the estate might descend. ↩
4. "An act amendatory of chapters thirty, thirty-one and thirty-two, Howell Code, 'Of Marriages,' 'Of the Rights of Married Women,' 'Of Divorce,' and repealing chapter twenty-seven, 'Of Estates in Dower,'" approved 30 December 1865; printed in Coles Bashford, comp., The Compiled Laws of the Territory of Arizona, Including the Howell Code and the Session Laws from 1864 to 1871, Inclusive (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1871), ch. XXXII ("Of the Rights of Married Women"), amendments § 10: "No estate shall be allowed the husband as tenant by courtesy upon decease of his wife, nor any estate in dower be allowed to the wife upon the decease of her husband." Digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp682117253 : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
5. Arizona Code, 1939: Containing the General Laws of Arizona, Annotated, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1940), § 1-103 (majority at 21 for any person); digital images, Arizona Memory Project (https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38237 : accessed 22 July 2026). And see U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Arizona, Bulletin of the Women's Bureau No. 157-2 (rev.) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), no. 1; PDF, FRASER (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-02-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
6. Arizona Code (1939), § 52-502 (a minor's contracts and conveyances are voidable; the minor is liable for necessaries); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 2. ↩ ↩
7. Session Laws of Arizona, 1947, ch. 107 (a lawfully married person of 18 or over holds the community-property rights of a person of 21); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 10. ↩
8. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXX ("Of Marriages"), § 7, from the act of 30 December 1865: no person authorized to solemnize marriage shall "join in marriage any male under the age of eighteen years, or any female under the age of sixteen years, without the consent of the parent or guardian, or other person under whose care and government such minor may be," on pain of a misdemeanor. ↩
9. Arizona Code (1939), § 63-102; Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 18 (males under 18 and females under 16 forbidden to marry; where either party is, or is about to become, the parent of a child, the two may marry with the consent of the minor's parent or guardian and the approval of a superior court judge, "unless such marriage is prohibited by racial restrictions"). ↩
10. Arizona Code (1939), § 63-104 (no parental consent needed where the male is 21 and the female 18), § 63-109 (misdemeanor for a clerk to issue a license to an underage applicant without written parental consent); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 18. ↩
11. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXX, §§ 1, 6, 8–10 ("Marriage is considered in law as a civil contract, to which the consent of the parties is essential"; the governor, judges and justices of the peace, and clergymen or licensed preachers may solemnize; the officiant transmits a certificate to the recorder of the county within three months; the recorder records it in a book kept for that purpose). ↩
12. The Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913: Civil Code, comp. Samuel L. Pattee (Phoenix, Ariz.: McNeil Co., 1913), ¶ 3844; digital images, Arizona Memory Project (https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38228 : accessed 22 July 2026). The paragraph is marked in the margin "Common law marriage abolished, new section": "The common law rule that a marriage may be contracted by agreement of the parties without marriage ceremony is hereby abrogated, and no marriage contracted within this state shall be valid unless a license be issued as provided in this chapter, and a marriage solemnized by one of the persons authorized by law, or by some one purporting to act in the capacity of a clergyman, judge or justice, and believed in good faith, by at least one of the parties, to be such." Carried into Arizona Code (1939), § 63-111; Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 19. ↩
13. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXX, § 5: marriages contracted outside the Territory "which would be valid by the laws of the country in which the same were contracted, shall be valid in all courts and places within this Territory." ↩
14. Howell Code, ch. XXX, § 2 (marriages between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, and uncles with nieces or aunts with nephews are "incestuous, and absolutely void," the section extending to illegitimate as well as legitimate relations). ↩
15. Howell Code, ch. XXX, §§ 3–4 ("All marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes are declared to be illegal and void," with a fine of $100 to $10,000 or imprisonment of three months to ten years on the parties and the officiant). ↩
16. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXX, § 3, from the act of 30 December 1865: "All marriages of white persons with negroes, mulattoes, Indians or Mongolians are declared illegal and void." Codified at The Revised Statutes of Arizona Territory (Columbia, Mo.: Press of E. W. Stephens, 1901), ¶ 3092; digital images, HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433009076062 : accessed 22 July 2026). Carried into Revised Statutes of 1913, Civil Code, ¶ 3837 ("All marriages of persons of Caucasian blood, or their descendants, with negroes, Mongolians or Indians, and their descendants, shall be null and void"), the latter citing ¶ 3092 of the 1901 code as its source. ↩ ↩
17. Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Regular Session of the Tenth Legislature of the State of Arizona (1931), ch. 17 (House Bill No. 70), "To amend Sec. 2166, Revised Code, 1928, relating to prohibited and void marriages," approved 26 February 1931: "The marriage of persons of Caucasian blood, or their descendants, with Negroes, Hindus, Mongolians, members of the Malay race, or Indians, and their descendants, shall be null and void," with marriages between the named degrees of kinship "and between first cousins" declared incestuous and void, and children born out of wedlock "or the relations thereof" included within the prohibition. The section it replaced, The Revised Code of Arizona, 1928, codified and revised by F. C. Struckmeyer, Code Commissioner (Phoenix, Ariz.: The Manufacturing Stationers, 1928), § 2166; digital images, Arizona Memory Project (https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38235 : accessed 22 July 2026), had reached only "Negroes, Mongolians or Indians." Carried into Arizona Code (1939), § 63-107, with § 63-108 barring evasion by marriage out of state; and see William E. Foster, "A Study of the Wyoming Miscegenation Statutes," 10 Wyoming Law Journal 131 (1956). William E. Foster, "A Study of the Wyoming Miscegenation Statutes," 10 Wyoming Law Journal 131 (1956), cites the 1939 sections (https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlj/vol10/iss2/5 : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
18. Acts, Memorials and Resolutions of the First Special Session of the Fifteenth Legislature of the State of Arizona (1942), ch. 12 (House Bill No. 9), "Relating to marriage; defining void and prohibited marriages, validating marriages heretofore contracted, and amending section 63-107, Arizona Code of 1939," approved by the Governor 28 April 1942: "The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void," the prohibited degrees extended to first cousins, and "the marriages of all persons heretofore contracted, which would be valid under this section, are hereby validated, ab initio, in all respects." ↩
19. Pima County Superior Court Judge Herbert F. Krucker declared the statute unconstitutional on 23 December 1959 and granted a marriage license to Oyama and Jordan, the couple the clerk had refused; their case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, and the appeal taken to the Arizona Supreme Court was dismissed after the legislature repealed the law. Arizona Daily Star, "Honors for 2 Who Fought Interracial Marriage Ban" (https://tucson.com/news/local/honors-for-2-who-fought-interracial-marriage-ban/article_e7b1cdf1-eea3-5e4b-83f0-72b25130be57.html : accessed 22 July 2026). A superior court ruling of this period was not separately reported. The bar was removed by 1962 Session Laws, Twenty-fifth Legislature, Second Regular Session, ch. 14 (House Bill No. 50), "Relating to marriage; prescribing certain marriages as being void and prohibited, and amending section 25-101, Arizona Revised Statutes," approved 12 March 1962, which rewrote the section to read: "Marriages between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, between brothers and sisters of the one-half as well as the whole blood, and between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews and between first cousins, is prohibited and void." ↩
20. The original restriction is Revised Statutes of 1913, Civil Code, ¶ 4716 ("Alien ownership prohibited"), from Session Laws of Arizona, 1912, Regular Session, ch. 71. It was rewritten by Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Regular Session of the Third Legislature of the State of Arizona (1917), ch. 43 (Senate Bill No. 147), "To amend Chapter III, Title 46, Paragraph 4716, of the Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913, Civil Code, relating to the rights, powers, and disabilities of aliens," approved 12 March 1917, capping alien leases at five years, allowing alien widows and heirs to take by inheritance but requiring a sale within five years, and excepting mining lands and treaty rights; revised by Session Laws of Arizona, 1921, ch. 29, § 3 (real property only so far as a treaty prescribed "and not otherwise"), carried into Revised Code of 1928, § 2784. ↩ ↩
21. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXXII, § 1, and amendments §§ 1, 3–6: a wife's property "shall be and remain the estate and property of such female," not liable for her husband's debts; a signed inventory of it is recorded with the recorder of her county and gives notice of her title; the husband has "the management and control" of it during the marriage, and no sale or other alienation may be made "unless by an instrument in writing, signed by the husband and wife, and acknowledged by her upon an examination, separate and apart from her husband." ↩
22. Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 738 (Sec. 18): "The acknowledgment of a married woman, when required by law, may be taken in the same form as if she were sole, and without any examination separate and apart from her husband." Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 3105 (Sec. 19): "Married women of the age of eighteen years and upwards, shall have the sole and exclusive control of their separate property, and the same shall not be liable for the debts, obligations or engagements of the husband, and may be contracted, sold, transferred, mortgaged, conveyed, devised or bequeathed by them in the same manner and with like effect as if they were unmarried"; ¶ 3106 (Sec. 20) (the same legal rights from the age of eighteen). Carried into Arizona Code (1939), §§ 63-302 to 63-304, and § 71-409 (the husband need not join in a conveyance of the wife's separate property); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), nos. 5, 9, which states the control without an age qualification. ↩ ↩
23. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXXII, amendments § 9: "The husband shall have the entire management and control of the common property, with the like absolute power of disposition as to his own separate estate." ↩
24. Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 3104: community "personal property may be disposed of by the husband only; but the wife must join in all deeds and mortgages affecting real estate except unpatented mining claims". Re-enacted in Revised Statutes of 1913, Civil Code, ¶ 3850, which defines the common property and cites ¶ 3104 of the 1901 code as its source, and ¶ 2061, marked "new section": "No conveyance, transfer, mortgage or incumbrance of any real estate which is the common property of husband and wife, or any interest therein, shall be valid unless" both execute it; carried into Arizona Code (1939), § 71-409. Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 10. ↩
25. Rundle v. Winters, 38 Ariz. 239, 298 P. 929 (1931), voiding a husband's sole conveyance of community realty; and see La Tourette v. La Tourette, 15 Ariz. 200, 137 P. 426 (1914). ↩
26. Arizona Code (1939), §§ 24-501, 24-502 (head of a family may hold a homestead of up to $4,000 exempt from forced sale; where selected from the wife's separate property she must join in the claim); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 3. ↩
27. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XLII ("Of Conveyances"), § 2 (husband and wife "may, by their joint deed, convey the real estate of the wife in like manner as she might do by her separate deed if she were unmarried"), § 3 (every conveyance in writing affecting real estate "shall be acknowledged, or proved and certified"), § 4 (the officers who may take the proof or acknowledgment), § 5 (the certificate endorsed or annexed to the conveyance), § 6 (no acknowledgment unless the person is known to the officer to be the one whose name is subscribed, "or shall be proved to be such by the oath or affirmation of a credible witness"). Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 749 (Sec. 29): conveyances of land "shall be void as to all creditors and subsequent purchasers for valuable consideration without notice, unless they shall be acknowledged and filed with the recorder, to be recorded, as required by law," but "as between the parties and their heirs, and as to all subsequent purchasers, with notice thereof, or without valuable consideration, shall nevertheless be valid and binding"; ¶ 737 (Sec. 17) (no instrument lawfully recorded unless previously acknowledged). ↩ ↩
28. Howell Code, ch. XXVI ("Of Title to Real Property by Descent"), § 1, cll. 1–2: land not lawfully devised descends "in equal shares to his children, and to the issue of any deceased child by right of representation," and where the deceased "shall leave no issue, his estate shall descend to his widow during her natural lifetime, and after her decease, to his father"; with dower at ch. XXVII, § 1. ↩
29. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXXII, amendments § 11: on the dissolution of the community by death "one-half of the common property shall go to the survivor, and the other half to the descendants of the deceased husband or wife, subject to the payments of the debts of the deceased," and where there are no descendants "the whole shall go to the survivor." ↩
30. Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 2117 (Sec. 2), title 18 ("Descent and Distribution"): where an intestate leaves a husband or wife and "a child or children, or their descendants, the surviving husband or wife shall take one-third of the separate personal estate," the balance to the children, and "shall also be entitled to an estate for life in one-third of the land of the intestate, with remainder to the child or children." Arizona Code (1939), § 39-102 (separate property of an intestate leaving a spouse: with children, the survivor takes one-third of the personal estate and a life estate in one-third of the real property; with no descendants, the whole personal estate and one-half the realty, or the entire estate where neither parent survives), § 39-109 (one-half of the community property to the survivor; the other half disposable by the decedent's will and passing to the survivor if not so disposed of and no descendants survive); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 15. ↩ ↩
31. Arizona Code (1939), § 42-102 (in appointing a guardian for a child under 14 the court must designate the father or mother if competent), § 42-110 (guardian named by the father's will with the mother's written consent, by either parent where the other is dead or incapable of consenting, or, for a child born out of wedlock, by the mother); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), nos. 25, 26. ↩
32. Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 1956: "If he is above the age of fourteen years he may nominate his own guardian, who, if approved by the judge, must be appointed accordingly." ↩
33. Arizona Code (1939), § 27-401 (every child born of natural parents is the legitimate child of those parents, entitled to support and education as if born in wedlock and to inherit from its natural parents and their kindred "in the same manner as children born in lawful wedlock"), from Session Laws of Arizona, 1921, ch. 114, § 1, effective 17 March 1921, which the Revised Code of 1928 prints at § 273 with the derivation "§ 1, Ch. 114, L. '21, rev.; in lieu of 1103-4, 3840, R. S. '13"; bastardy proceedings and support to majority at §§ 27-405 to 27-410. Estate of Silva, 32 Ariz. 573, 261 P. 40 (1927). Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), nos. 28, 29. ↩
34. Howell Code, ch. XXVIII ("Of Wills"), §§ 1, 4 ("Every person of full age and sound mind" may devise land and bequeath personal estate, and "any married woman may devise and dispose of any real or personal property held by her, or to which she is entitled in her own right"), § 5 (the will must be in writing, signed by the testator, and "attested and subscribed in the presence of the testator by two or more competent witnesses"), § 7 (a beneficial devise, legacy, or gift to a subscribing witness is "wholly void, unless there be two other competent subscribing witnesses to the same"). ↩ ↩
35. Arizona Code (1939), § 41-101 (a person lawfully married, though a minor, may make a will); majority at § 1-103; Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), nos. 1–2. ↩
36. Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 4214 (Sec. 3) (a will must be in writing and signed by the testator, and "if not wholly written by himself, be attested by two or more credible witnesses above the age of fourteen years, subscribing their names thereto in the presence of the testator"), ¶ 4215 (Sec. 4) ("Where the will is wholly written by the testator, the attestation of the subscribing witnesses, as required by the preceding sections, may be dispensed with"). Neither the Howell Code nor the Compiled Laws (1871) carries a holographic-will provision, so the form entered Arizona law with this codification. ↩
37. Howell Code, probate provisions (compiled as ch. XXIX, "Of Probate Courts," in the Compiled Laws (1871)), § 42 (no person is competent to serve as executor who at the time the will is proved is "under the age of twenty-one years"), § 46 (where a minor is named executor, letters of administration with the will annexed issue, or a competent co-executor administers "until the minor shall arrive at full age, when he may be admitted as joint executor"). Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 1637 (Sec. 428) ("No person is competent to serve as executor who at the time the will is admitted to probate is: 1. Under the age of majority"), ¶ 1651 (Sec. 442) (the same rule for administrators), and ¶ 1650 (Sec. 441) (where the person entitled to administer is a minor, letters go to the guardian or another entitled person). ↩
38. Nowland v. Vinyard, 43 Ariz. 27, 32, 29 P.2d 139 (1934); Blackman v. Blackman, 45 Ariz. 374, 384, 43 P.2d 1011 (1935); Arizona Code (1939), § 39-109; Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 14. ↩
39. Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXXIII, "To provide Revenue for the Territory of Arizona and the several counties thereof," § 1 (a territorial tax on "the assessed value of all property in this Territory not by this act exempted from taxation," with county taxes of up to two dollars on each hundred dollars of taxable value), approved 18 February 1871; the chapter's own note records that the act took the place of, and repealed, ch. 33 of the Howell Code, "Of Finance and Taxation." For the adoption of the territorial property-tax laws at statehood, Arizona Department of Revenue, Overview of the Arizona Property Tax System; PDF (https://azdor.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/PROPERTY_OverviewAZPTSystem.pdf : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
40. Poll tax: Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XXXIII, § 45: "Each male inhabitant of this Territory, over the age of twenty-one and under sixty, and not by law exempt from poll tax," pays the tax to the assessor between the first Monday of March and the first Monday of September, and in default "shall pay a poll tax of five dollars for the use of the Territory and County," enforced by the county collector "whether the name of such inhabitant be on his tax roll or not"; § 46 (the county treasurer to have blank poll-tax receipts printed each year "of a uniform appearance, changing the style thereof each year," numbered and entered in a book). Road tax: ch. LXXI ("Concerning Roads and Highways"), § 6 (the board of supervisors may levy a road tax on all able-bodied men, not exceeding five cents on every hundred dollars, collected with the other property taxes, the road tax not applying within incorporated towns or cities, and every able-bodied man paying in addition "the sum of six dollars each, or, at their option, two days' work upon the road under the direction of the road overseer"). Under the later code, Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 3952 (Sec. 121): "Each person of the age of twenty-one years or over, and under sixty years, residing in this territory (except Indians) shall owe to the county in which he resides at the time the tax becomes due, the sum of two dollars and fifty cents for each year, the same to be known as a poll tax"; ¶ 3953 (collected with the taxes on personal property and entered on the tax roll); and ¶ 3964 (Sec. 3609): "Every able-bodied male resident of the territory over twenty-one years and under fifty years of age and not residing within the corporate limits of an incorporated town or city shall be required to perform, either in person or by substitute, two days' labor on the highways within his district. ↩ ↩
41. For the earlier rule, Compiled Laws (1871), ch. XLVII ("Of Jurors"), § 4: "A person shall not be competent to act as juror unless he be — First. A citizen of the United States. Second. An elector of the county in which he is returned. Third. Over twenty-one and under sixty years of age. Fourth. In the possession of his natural faculties," nor if convicted of "a felony or misdemeanor, involving moral turpitude," nor "unless he understands proceedings in the English language"; § 5 (the exempt classes), § 6 (excuse for hardship), and § 2 (the supervisors' annual list of persons "qualified and liable to serve as jurors," certified to the clerk of the District Court). For the later rule, Revised Statutes of 1901, ¶ 2780 (Sec. 6) ("All male persons are competent who possess the qualifications in this act specified"), ¶ 2781 (Sec. 7) (a juror "shall be a male citizen of the United States, a resident of the county, for at least six months next prior to his being summoned as a juror, sober and intelligent, of sound mind, and good moral character, over twenty-one years of age, and shall understand the English language," and not convicted of or charged with a felony), ¶ 2782 (disqualifications in a particular case), ¶ 2783 (the exempt classes, headed by "All persons over sixty years of age"). The rule carried unchanged to the end of the period: Arizona Code (1939), ch. 37 ("Juries and Jurors"), § 37-102, in the same words, with the history line "R. S. 1901, § 2781; 1913, § 3516; R. C. 1928, § 1905"; § 37-104 (the exempt classes, headed by persons over 60 and extending to editors, school teachers, druggists, undertakers, telegraph operators, railroad and express men, and organized firemen in towns of 1,500 or more); and § 37-101 (a grand jury of sixteen to twenty-one men, a trial jury of twelve). The annotation to § 37-102 records that under it "persons who have not yet acquired the qualifications of electors may be entitled to sit upon a jury," citing Lawrence v. State, 29 Ariz. 247, 240 P. 863 (1926). ↩
42. Session Laws of Arizona, 1945, ch. 50 (women eligible for all jury duty, but not compelled to serve); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 32. ↩
43. Harrison v. Laveen, 67 Ariz. 337, 196 P.2d 456 (1948), construing "persons under guardianship" in the Ariz. Const. of 1912, art. VII, § 2, and in Arizona Code (1939), § 55-201, to mean a guardianship established by a court, so that the clause "has no application … to the Federal status of Indians in Arizona as a class," and expressly overruling Porter v. Hall, 34 Ariz. 308, 271 P. 411 (1928); opinion, CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3254299/harrison-v-laveen/ : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
44. Howell Code, criminal provisions on who is capable of committing crimes, § 3 (a person is of sound mind who "hath arrived at the age of fourteen years: or before that age, if such person know the distinction between good and evil"), § 4 ("An infant under the age of fourteen years shall not be found guilty of any crime"). Revised Statutes of 1901, Penal Code, § 24: "All persons are capable of committing crimes except those belonging to the following classes: (1.) Children under the age of ten, in the absence of clear proof that at the time of committing the act charged against them, they knew its wrongfulness." The Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913: Penal Code, comp. Samuel L. Pattee (Phoenix, Ariz.: McNeil Co., 1913), § 24, which restores fourteen and carries the marginal derivation "Sec. 24, P. C. 1901"; digital images, Arizona Memory Project (https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/38231 : accessed 22 July 2026). ↩
45. Ariz. Const. of 1912, art. VI, § 6: "The superior court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in all proceedings and matters affecting dependent, neglected, incorrigible or delinquent children, or children accused of crime, under the age of eighteen years," with the judges to examine such children in chambers ahead of any criminal prosecution and power to suspend the prosecution. Carried into statute by Session Laws of Arizona, 1912, First Special Session, ch. 63, § 1, re-enacted by Session Laws of Arizona, 1913, Third Special Session, ch. 16, and printed as Revised Statutes of 1913, Civil Code, title XXVII ("Juvenile Courts"), ¶ 3562, which defines the dependent, neglected, incorrigible, and delinquent child and directs that the record of the proceedings "be kept in a docket separate from all other proceedings of said court." ↩
46. Arizona Code (1939), § 23-103 (competency of spouses to testify in civil actions), §§ 44-2701, 44-2702 (spousal testimony in criminal actions, with exceptions for suits between the spouses and for abandonment, non-support, bigamy, and like offenses); Legal Status of Women in Arizona (1949), no. 13. ↩
47. Howell Code, "Who may be a Witness in Criminal Cases," § 14: "No black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of or against any white person," with a person of one-fourth or more negro blood deemed a mulatto and one of one-half Indian blood deemed an Indian. ↩