" State v. Brown, 121 Ariz. 125, 126, 588 P.2d 867, 868 (App. 1978) (whether to admit defendant into Adult Diversion Program is decision within prosecutor's discretion); see also King v. Neely, 143 Ariz. 329, 331, 693 P.2d 984, 986 (App. 1984) (within prosecutor' s discretion to admit defendant into child molester' s treatment program); cf. State v. Donald, 198 Ariz. 406, ¶ 39, 10 P.3d 1193, ¶ 39 (App. 2000) ("Discretion over plea bargaining is a core prosecutorial power, but . . . the courts may intervene to reinstate a plea offer that the State has withdrawn for vindictive reasons."). ¶ 11 Moreover, it was for Cranmer to allege and prove an abuse of discretion if she believed, as she apparently did, that the prosecutor had acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner.
On these facts, notwithstanding evidence of ill-feeling between defense counsel and some members of the prosecutor's office, a failure to bargain cannot be established. It is not impermissible to condition reduction of what the legislature has designated as a serious felony to a misdemeanor by some demonstration that the defendant is not involved in the trade in controlled substances. See King v. Neely, 143 Ariz. 329, 693 P.2d 984 (App. 1984). There is no presumption that one's first involvement with the law is one's first descent into criminality.
This view receives support in some early cases of other states. ( Scott v. Terry, 37 Miss. 65; King v. Neely, 14 La. Ann. 165; Hitchcock v. Smith, 3 Stew. P. 29 (Ala.).) However, this section was construed adversely to respondents' contention in Estate of Smith, supra, in which the court held that the exception in section 1394 of the Civil Code (now section 254 of the Probate Code) excluded kindred of the half blood in favor of kindred of the whole blood, where the former were not of the blood of the ancestor from whom the estate came by descent, devise, or gift, and applied only where such kindred were "in the same degree" and had no application to any cases where the degrees were not the same.