Opinion ID: 1774411
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The State's recourse under LSA-R.S. 14:143

Text: It must be recognized that this particular case is in some ways a deviation from the scenario envisioned by the legislature when it passed LSA-R.S. 14:143. That statute was passed to prevent criminal defendants from availing themselves of a municipal prosecution and its attendant lesser punishments and thereupon avoiding a later felony prosecution by the State for the same conduct. Thus, this situation, a criminal defendant utilizing LSA-R.S. 14:143 and the existence of a comparable state felony statute to avoid a municipal prosecution, must be considered somewhat anomalous. Furthermore, a state prosecutor may not be able to intervene or institute a parallel felony prosecution in state district court once a municipal prosecution has begun in a municipal court. Although municipal and district courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction, it is a well-established rule of law that, where two courts have concurrent jurisdiction over the same subject matter, the court which first obtains jurisdiction obtains it to the end of the controversy to the exclusion of all others. State v. Sawyer, 57 So.2d 899, 902 (La.1952). Thus, once a prosecution has commenced in a municipal court, the district attorney is precluded from intervening and obtaining the dismissal of such prosecution on the grounds of preemption, since [n]o district attorney ... shall appear, plead, or in any way defend or assist in defending any criminal prosecution or charge. La. Const. Art. V, § 26(C). See also LSA-C.Cr.P. Art. 65. Finally, the State of Louisiana may have no standing to raise any sort of postconviction challenge to a conviction under a municipal ordinance because it was not party to the original prosecution. See Foy, supra, 401 So.2d at 950, citing Suire, supra . [23] By passing LSA-R.S. 14:143, the Legislature has endeavored to confer upon the state as prosecutor a means of protecting its prerogative to pursue felony prosecutions free from unnecessary obstacles. Compare Board of Comm'rs v. Connick, 94-CA-3161, 654 So.2d 1073 (La.1995). [24] Accordingly, we determine that this necessary State interest may be vindicated by recourse to a declaratory judgment action invoking the remedial, i.e. preemptive, provision of LSA-R.S. 14:143. [25] See LSA-C.C.P. Art. 1871 et seq. Compare Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 699, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1958, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The threat of immediate injury that a municipal ordinance proscribing the same offense as a felony statute portends for the state and its prosecutor, given that once a prosecution commences under the municipal ordinance the district attorney is unable to intervene, renders such a situation a justiciable controversy. Church Point Wholesale Beverage v. Tarver, 614 So.2d 697, 701 (La.1993); American Waste v. St. Martin Parish, 627 So.2d 158, 162 (La.1993).