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301 So. 2d 604

Docket No. 54568.

State v. Patterson

STATE of Louisiana, Relator, v. James Louis PATTERSON, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided October 11, 1974.

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1974-10-11

Relies on 277 So. 2d 660 - State v. Snyder · State v. Swain · State ex rel. Thompson v. Henderson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1974-10-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently January 2015 · most notably 376 So. 2d 136 - State v. Reaves (1979), 464 So. 2d 737 - State v. Perez (1985)

30 state decisions

14019741980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Charles A. Marvin, Dist. Atty., Henry N. Brown, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-relator.

¶2S. Frank Harlow, Shreveport, for defendant-respondent.

¶3TATE, Justice.

¶4The defendant was arrested by a state policeman within the limits of a municipality. He was charged with two offenses: driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated, La.R.S. 14:98, and resisting arrest, La.R.S. 40:1390.

¶5The defendant filed motions to quash the charges. They were essentially based upon the alleged lack of legal authority of the state policeman to arrest the defendant for the crimes charged within the limits of Bossier City. It was stipulated that the chief executive officer of the city had not officially requested the state police to act within the municipal limits, as allegedly required by La.R.S. 40:1387 (1972). Cf., State v. Swain, 292 So.2d 495 (La.1974).

¶6The trial court sustained the motions and quashed the informations. We granted the State's application for certiorari, 293 So.2d 173, primarily because we entertained doubt that the motion to quash was the proper procedural vehicle to urge the technical and substantive defenses raised. We reverse on that ground and remand.

¶7Generally speaking, the motion to quash is essentially a mechanism by which to raise pre-trial pleas or defenses, those which do not go to the merits of the charge. La.C.Cr.P. arts. 531-534. Thus, the question of evidentiary guilt or innocence of the offense charged may not properly be raised by the motion to quash. State v. Snyder, 277 So.2d 660 (La.1973).

¶8The present issue of non-lawful arrest relates primarily to a defense on the merits including one which could be raised by a motion for a directed verdict. Or, if the issue sought to be raised is unlawful *605 search and seizure because of unlawful arrest, then, as the State suggests, the motion to suppress is the proper procedural vehicle to question the use at the trial of evidence so obtained.

¶9For the reasons assigned, therefore, the motions to quash are overruled, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the views here set forth.

¶10Reversed and remanded.

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