In A & P Ranch Ltd. v. Cochise County, the unanimous court held that permanent crops qualifying as agricultural property must be valued with the land under Arizona’s income-based agricultural valuation method. Assessors may not add separate market values for orchard trees, vineyard vines or other qualifying permanent crops.

The court affirmed the Arizona Tax Court’s judgment for the property owners and vacated the Court of Appeals’ opinion, replacing that court’s reasoning with its own. The decision was filed July 24, 2026. On Aug. 12, the Supreme Court amended paragraph 17 of the opinion after a motion from the Arizona Department of Revenue, while stating in the docket that the change would not alter the holding or judgment. The docket also shows that ADOR’s motion for reconsideration remained unresolved as of that update.

What the Cochise County assessments did

The dispute arose from 2023 assessments in Cochise County. The assessor valued agricultural land at $1,800 per acre under the statutory income approach. The assessor then separately assigned market-based values of $12,000 per acre for orchard trees and $8,000 per acre for vineyard vines, adding those amounts to the land value.

An Arizona Supreme Court case summary said the county’s revised approach produced an average 2,000% increase in orchard values and an average 8,000% increase in vineyard values. The property owners challenged the method, arguing that Arizona law requires the land and permanent crops to be valued together.

The case summary says the Arizona Tax Court ruled for the property owners, concluding that separately valuing permanent crops conflicted with the statutory scheme. The Supreme Court affirmed that judgment.

Why the court rejected separate market values

Arizona law identifies qualifying agricultural property under A.R.S. § 42-12151. That provision includes an aggregate of at least 10 gross acres of permanent crops for the relevant classification.

For qualifying agricultural property, A.R.S. § 42-13101 requires an exclusive income approach. The method values the land by capitalizing its average annual net cash rental value and excludes urban or market influences.

The Supreme Court read those provisions together as one system: Section 42-12151 determines which property qualifies for agricultural treatment, while Section 42-13101 establishes how that qualifying property must be valued.

In the amended paragraph 17, the court said permanent trees and vines are integral to the land’s agricultural use. Comparable orchards and vineyards command rental values that reflect the productive characteristics created by those permanent crops, so the income method captures the crops’ economic contribution through the property’s income-producing capacity.

Separately assigning market values to trees or vines could therefore value the same productive agricultural property cumulatively. The ruling also means administrative guidance cannot control to the extent it conflicts with the statutes.

Who may be affected

The ruling establishes the statewide legal interpretation of Arizona’s agricultural-property classification and valuation statutes; it is not limited to Cochise County. It may affect owners of qualifying orchards, vineyards and other permanent-crop properties in counties across Arizona.

It does not mean every property with trees, vines or other crops automatically qualifies. Eligibility depends on the agricultural-classification requirements in state law. Owners should distinguish qualifying agricultural property from other farmland, planted acreage or property that does not meet the statutory requirements.

What it means for tax bills

The decision establishes a valuation rule. It does not, by itself, establish an automatic refund, a revised bill, a lower tax payment or retroactive relief for every owner.

Arizona property taxes involve several steps. Classification determines which rules apply; valuation determines the property’s value; an assessment ratio is applied; and the resulting assessed value is multiplied by the applicable tax rate to determine taxes owed. The Supreme Court’s holding concerns the valuation method. The final tax bill also depends on those other components.

The ruling does not specify which prior tax years must be recalculated, whether past overpayments will be refunded, whether counties must reopen completed assessments or whether a new appeal period has been created.

What owners should watch next

Owners should review future notices of value and check whether the property remains classified as agricultural property and whether the county has used the income approach without a separate market-value line for permanent crops.

The Arizona Department of Revenue’s assessment materials are guidance for county assessors, but the court’s ruling controls if administrative instructions conflict with Arizona law. Owners should watch for updated department guidance and county assessor procedures after the decision.

Anyone who disagrees with a notice of value should review the notice itself and verify the applicable county appeal deadline and filing procedure. A valuation-method ruling does not automatically create a new deadline or replace existing procedures for challenging an assessment or seeking a correction.

For now, the central questions—how assessors will recalculate affected values, whether any relief will reach earlier tax years and how individual owners should pursue corrections—remain matters of implementation and applicable appeal procedures. Owners should contact their county assessor and consult current Arizona Department of Revenue materials before taking action.

Key sources

• Arizona Supreme Court appellate docket, A & P Ranch Ltd. v. Cochise County
• Arizona Supreme Court oral-argument case summary
• A & P Ranch Ltd. v. Cochise County, Arizona Supreme Court opinion
• Arizona Department of Revenue Assessment Procedures Library

The Town of Marana announced the decision through its newsroom. The town said the petition’s denial brought the legal challenge to the project to a close and means Downtown Marana can officially move forward.

What the court decision changes

The ruling changes the project’s immediate legal status. A petition for review asks the state’s highest court to consider a case or lower-court decision. By denying the petition, the Arizona Supreme Court declined to take up the review connected to Downtown Marana.

That action allows the town and other parties involved in the project to continue with the next development and implementation steps, according to Marana. The decision is therefore a procedural turning point for a project that had been delayed by the legal challenge.

The confirmed court action is the denial of the petition. The ruling should not be described as a decision on the merits of every issue involving the project. Marana’s announcement establishes the result and its effect on the project’s ability to proceed, but it does not describe the court’s reasoning.

For residents following Downtown Marana, the practical consequence is that the project remains in the town’s development pipeline rather than being held up by the petition. The town identifies the development as part of its economic-development and planning activity.

What happens next

Marana said the project could officially move ahead after the Supreme Court’s denial. That means the next stages of development and implementation can continue without the immediate legal obstacle created by the challenge.

The ruling does not establish a construction start date or a completion date. It also does not, by itself, provide a project cost, identify the petitioners or detail the lower-court proceedings. Those are separate questions from whether the Supreme Court would review the matter.

The distinction matters because permission to proceed after a petition is denied is not the same as confirmation that construction has begun or that every part of a development has been completed. The July 20 development is the end of the identified legal challenge, as described by the town, and the resulting ability to continue the project’s next steps.

Downtown Marana now moves forward as a town economic-development and planning project without that pending petition blocking its progress. The next publicly identified action is continued development and implementation. Any construction timing or broader schedule would come through later project activity rather than from the Supreme Court’s denial itself.

The agreement sets the operating framework for the countywide primary, which is underway. It comes amid a broader 2026 election calendar in which Maricopa County says it will administer four elections, including state and national elections in August and November.

Agreement follows mediated negotiations

County officials said the agreement resulted from mediated negotiations between the Board of Supervisors and the Recorder’s Office. The two offices play central roles in county election administration, and the announced arrangement provides a shared plan for primary-election operations.

The county said those operations will be governed by a 12-point plan detailed in an Arizona Supreme Court order in Heap v. State. The announcement ties the plan to that court order, but the materials provided do not establish that the agreement resolves every issue in the underlying case.

Neither the county announcement nor the available News Flash material identifies specific operational changes from prior election procedures. The available material also does not provide the full agreement or a complete public listing of all 12 points.

What is known — and what is not

The confirmed development is that the Board of Supervisors and Recorder’s Office agreed on rules to administer the 2026 primary. The county has not, in the supplied announcement material, described how each part of the 12-point plan will be carried out or which procedures, if any, differ from earlier practice.

That distinction matters because the announcement establishes an operating agreement for the primary without supplying enough detail to independently characterize every requirement of the plan. The county’s notice also does not set out separate election procedures for Phoenix.

Phoenix is within Maricopa County, and the agreement applies to countywide primary-election operations. The county published the announcement through its official News Flash system.

Next on the county’s election calendar

The immediate next step identified in the announcement is administration of the 2026 primary under the agreed framework. Maricopa County’s 2026 schedule also includes state and national elections in August and November.

No additional implementation deadline, primary-election date or full public breakdown of the 12-point plan was included in the approved source material. Until more detail is released, the agreement is best understood as the county’s announced framework for operating the 2026 primary rather than a public account of every election procedure it covers.

The deadline is listed by the Arizona Secretary of State and applies to county boards across the state. The approved records do not provide final statewide or county vote totals, and they do not establish whether every county completed its canvass by the deadline.

In Maricopa County, the canvass follows a July dispute over how election duties are divided between the county recorder and the Board of Supervisors. The Arizona Supreme Court issued an order on July 7 clarifying election-administration authority, and county officials announced a settlement a week later governing operations for the 2026 primary.

County canvass is the immediate statewide deadline

The July 21 primary was held before the Aug. 3 county-canvass deadline. Under the Secretary of State’s 2026 election calendar, boards of supervisors must canvass the returns from that election by Aug. 3.

The packet does not include certified election results or vote totals. It also does not state the outcome of any individual contest. The deadline concerns the county boards’ canvass process, rather than a reported result for a particular race.

The next statewide general election is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026. The county canvass deadline is therefore an immediate administrative milestone following the primary and before the general election.

Supreme Court reinstated modified injunctions

The Arizona Supreme Court’s July 7 order addressed an election-administration dispute in Maricopa County involving the Maricopa County Recorder and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

According to the court’s announcement, the justices vacated a June 18 stay issued by the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court then reinstated, with modifications, superior-court injunctions governing responsibilities between the recorder and the Board of Supervisors.

The order should not be read as giving unlimited election authority to either office. The court records describe responsibilities that are divided between the recorder and the board, with the injunctions reinstated in modified form.

The approved packet identifies Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap among the officials connected to the dispute. It does not provide a detailed account of every responsibility assigned under the modified injunctions, so the precise operational divisions beyond the court’s and county’s descriptions are not reported here.

Settlement put primary under interim plan

On July 14, Maricopa County announced that the Board of Supervisors and the recorder had reached a settlement on election operations. The county said the 2026 primary would operate under a 12-point plan detailed in the Arizona Supreme Court order.

That settlement came seven days after the Supreme Court’s order and seven days before the July 21 primary. It established the governing framework for Maricopa County’s primary operations during the period immediately preceding the election.

The 12-point plan is described in the approved county material as the plan associated with the Supreme Court order. The packet does not provide the full text of the plan or additional implementation findings, so it does not support conclusions about the plan’s effects beyond its stated role in governing the primary.

For election officials and voters, the Aug. 3 deadline is a concrete accountability point: county boards are required to complete their canvass of primary returns, while Maricopa County does so under the interim framework produced by the court action and settlement. Certified results should not be reported until the relevant county boards or the Secretary of State publish them.

The unanimous decision in Doe v. The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirmed summary judgment for the church defendants in Cochise County Superior Court and vacated a July 29, 2025, Arizona Court of Appeals memorandum decision that had revived the plaintiffs’ lawsuit.

The ruling creates statewide precedent for disputes involving religious counseling, confession and Arizona’s mandatory-reporting law. It does not give all clergy a blanket exemption from reporting suspected child abuse.

What the Arizona Supreme Court decided

The case involved three children who alleged that church officials failed to report their father’s abuse after he disclosed it during meetings with bishops and during a church disciplinary proceeding. The Arizona Supreme Court’s official case summary describes the underlying allegations; the court’s decision addressed the statutory and constitutional questions rather than the factual merits of the abuse claims.

The Cochise County Superior Court granted summary judgment to the church defendants in November 2023. The Court of Appeals later reversed that result, finding factual issues about whether the communications qualified for the clergy exception and whether withholding a report was reasonable and necessary under church doctrine.

The Supreme Court rejected that approach. It held that, absent fraud or collusion for secular purposes, the First Amendment generally prevents a court or jury from deciding whether a religious institution correctly interpreted and applied its own doctrine when determining whether nonreporting was reasonable and necessary.

On the record before it, the Supreme Court concluded that the bishops received the father’s admissions through confessions or confidential communications in the course of the church’s religious discipline. It also accepted their determination that keeping the communications confidential was reasonable and necessary within the concepts of the church’s religion. The court therefore affirmed judgment for the church defendants.

What Arizona’s reporting law says

A.R.S. § 13-3620 generally requires any person who reasonably believes that a minor is or has been the victim of abuse, neglect or certain related offenses to immediately report the information to law enforcement, the Department of Child Safety or, in some circumstances, tribal authorities.

The same subsection contains a limited exception for a member of the clergy, a priest or a Christian Science practitioner who receives a confession or confidential communication in that person’s religious role and in the course of the discipline enjoined by the person’s church. The person may withhold reporting of that communication or confession if the person determines that doing so is reasonable and necessary within the concepts of the religion.

The statute expressly limits the exception to the communication or confession. It does not cover personal observations the clergy member otherwise makes of the minor.

The Supreme Court defined a confession as a confidential acknowledgment or admission of a crime, sin or fault to clergy for the purpose of absolution. It described a confidential communication as speech or correspondence treated as private or made in confidence under circumstances indicating that it was intended only for the people addressed. The court also said religious institutions receive substantial First Amendment deference in deciding whether a communication fits those religious categories and whether it was received in the course of religious discipline.

The court separately explained that the statutory clergy privilege governing testimony in litigation does not itself eliminate the reporting duty. The reporting question is controlled by the exception in subsection (A), subject to its conditions.

What the ruling means for residents

People who disclose information to clergy should not assume that every conversation is legally confidential. Whether the exception applies depends on the nature of the communication, the clergy member’s role, the religious setting and the institution’s own understanding of its religious discipline.

The ruling also distinguishes between a clergy member’s religious determination and a court’s independent assessment of whether abuse occurred. The Supreme Court did not hold that abuse allegations are immune from investigation or that religious organizations are generally exempt from secular laws.

Outside the narrow statutory exception, Arizona’s immediate-reporting rule remains in effect. The decision did not change the reporting duties of teachers, health-care workers, law enforcement officers or other mandated reporters.

What happens next

The decision resolves the current appellate dispute over the church defendants’ summary judgment in this case. It gives lower courts a framework for future cases involving confidential religious communications, religious discipline and child-abuse reporting.

Future disputes may still involve whether a communication was actually confidential, whether it was received in the course of religious discipline, whether the person qualified as clergy under the institution’s religious understanding, or whether evidence supports a narrow inquiry into fraud or collusion for secular purposes. The Supreme Court said courts may still apply neutral principles of law and investigate those limited issues without deciding what a religious doctrine means.

The issue has also appeared in Arizona legislative debates. KJZZ reported in November 2023 that a proposal to require clergy to report ongoing child abuse learned in a confessional setting was blocked in committee. The Supreme Court’s July 30, 2026, ruling clarifies the law as it exists now; any broader change would require legislative action or a later legal development.

Sources

• Arizona Supreme Court opinion in Doe v. The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Arizona mandatory-reporting law, A.R.S. § 13-3620
• KJZZ: Arizona lawmaker wants clergy to report abuse learned during confessionals

In a decision filed July 24, 2026, the court held that qualifying agricultural property must be valued as a single taxable unit under Arizona’s income-based agricultural valuation law. Assessors may not apply the income approach to the land and then add separate market values for permanent crops such as orchard trees or vineyard vines.

What the court decided

The case, A & P Ranch v. Cochise County, involved Cochise County landowners and the Arizona Department of Revenue. The dispute centered on whether permanent crops could receive separate valuations after the property had already been valued under the state’s agricultural-income method.

The Supreme Court affirmed a tax-court judgment rejecting that approach. The decision limits the Department of Revenue’s authority to use its Agricultural Property Manual to require separate crop valuations in assessments of qualifying agricultural property.

The ruling does not invalidate the entire manual. It addresses the specific method of assigning separate market values to permanent crops after the income approach has been used.

Why it could affect tax bills

Removing a separate crop value may reduce the taxable value of some properties, particularly operations with substantial permanent plantings. The ruling does not establish a uniform tax cut statewide.

A property’s final bill also depends on whether it qualifies for Arizona’s agricultural valuation system, the assessor’s classification, applicable assessment ratios and local tax rates. The decision concerns how property is valued; it does not change local tax rates.

It also does not mean that every agricultural parcel, orchard or vineyard qualifies for the income-based treatment. Individual property facts and statutory requirements still control.

What owners should watch

The next practical issue is how county assessors and the Department of Revenue apply the decision. Owners should review future annual notices of value and ask their county assessor how the ruling affects a specific parcel.

Cochise County property owners who believe an assessment remains incorrect can use the county’s notice and appeal process. The county’s procedures explain how owners receive valuation information and challenge an assessment.

The decision has statewide legal reach, even though the underlying dispute arose in Cochise County. Its effect on individual properties will depend on implementation, classification and the details of each assessment.

Sources

• Arizona Supreme Court news release
• Cochise County assessment appeal process