The Arizona law, which appears to be quite unusual among the states, provides:
The defendant, the defendant's attorney or an agent of the defendant shall only initiate contact with the victim through the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office shall promptly inform the victim of the defendant's request for an interview and shall advise the victim of the victim's right to refuse the interview.
Judge Steven Logan (in yesterday's Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice v. Ducey) concluded that this was a speaker-based restriction on speech that appears to be justified by the expected content of the speech, and thus had to be judged under strict scrutiny, which the law failed. The court stressed that witnesses have every right to refuse to talk to the defense team, but the law "is not 'actually necessary'" to protect that, since "victims receive ample notice of their right to refuse a defense interview under several other provisions of state law." As to protecting witnesses from "intimidation, harassment, or abuse,"
