Is Possession of Burglary Tools a Crime? ARS 13-1505

Is Possession of Burglary Tools a Crime in Arizona?

Yes — a standalone felony, even if no burglary ever happened. Under A.R.S. § 13-1505, possession of burglary tools is a Class 6 felony with two distinct prongs:

• Tools plus intent: possessing any explosive, tool, instrument, or article adapted or commonly used for committing burglary, with the intent to use it (or let someone use it) in a burglary; and
• Car keys of the wrong kind: buying, selling, transferring, possessing, or using a motor vehicle manipulation key or master key — a prong aimed at car-theft tools that, notably, does not require proof of any planned burglary at all.

The Problem: Burglary Tools Are Ordinary Tools

Read the first prong again: “adapted or commonly used” for burglary. Screwdrivers, crowbars, bolt cutters, gloves, flashlights, and window punches are all “commonly used” for burglary — and for a thousand lawful things. What converts a trunk full of hand tools into a felony is intent, and intent is inferred from context: the time of night, the location, the combination of items, statements, and whatever else the report can assemble. Like the forgery-device statute, this is an inference crime — and inference crimes are beatable, because every innocent explanation for the tools attacks the only element that matters.

How This Charge Is Actually Used

Prosecutors deploy 13-1505 three ways: as an add-on to burglary counts (the tools corroborate the intent story); as the fallback when a burglary cannot be proven — someone stopped near a scene with tools but never placed inside; and as leverage — a felony hook in cases that would otherwise be thin. That fallback role matters for the defense: when the tools count is the State’s only viable charge, the whole case rests on the intent inference, and it inherits every weakness of the stop and search that produced the tools.

Penalties and the Designation Lever

A Class 6 felony carries a first-offense range of probation up to 2 years in prison — but Class 6 offenses are Arizona’s most negotiable: they can be designated misdemeanors, left undesignated, or resolved through diversion in appropriate cases. A standalone tools charge with a defensible intent story frequently ends without a felony record — if it is actually defended rather than pled away.

Defenses

• No burglary intent — lawful trade, hobby, or household explanations for every item;
• No knowing possession — borrowed vehicles, shared trunks, and other people’s toolboxes;
• Suppression — these cases begin with a stop and search, and a bad one takes the tools out of evidence;
• The statutory exemptions — lawful-occupation and single-manipulation-key provisions in the key prong; and
• Designation and diversion — keeping a surviving charge off the felony record.

How Tamou Law Group Defends Burglary Tools Cases

We defend the inference and the search together: the innocent explanation for every item, the exemptions in the key prong, and the lawfulness of the stop that produced the evidence. Because the charge is a Class 6, the designation and diversion levers mean even a surviving count rarely needs to become a permanent felony, if someone actually pulls them.

Related guides: the degrees of burglary, second-degree burglary (13-1507), and our Scottsdale property crimes lawyer page. Call 623-321-4699, 24/7.