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State v. Moten11/30/1999
AFFIRMED
The sole issue presented in this appeal is whether the trial court erred in granting the defendant's motion to quash the bill of information. For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm the ruling of the trial court.
The Jefferson Parish District Attorney filed a bill of information charging the defendant, Clarence Moten, with third offense driving while intoxicated ("DWI"), in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:98D. In the bill, the state alleged that the defendant had previously been convicted two times of DWI, on April 21, 1997, and November 17, 1997. Subsequent to entering a not guilty plea to the charge, the defendant filed a motion to quash the bill of information. In the motion, the defendant alleged that the April and November convictions could not be used as predicates for the charged third offense because he had not been properly advised of his constitutional rights before entering guilty pleas to those two offenses. Following a hearing, the trial court granted the defendant's motion to quash. From that ruling, the state now appeals.
LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 531 provides that " ll pleas or defenses raised before trial, other than mental incapacity to proceed, or pleas of `not guilty' and of `not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity,' shall be urged by a motion to quash."
A motion to quash is, essentially, a mechanism whereby pre-trial pleas are urged, i.e., pleas which do not go to the merits of the charge. At a hearing on such a motion, evidence is limited to procedural matters and the question of factual guilt or innocence is not before the court. State v. Byrd, 96-2302 (La. 3/13/98), 708 So.2d 401.
In this case, the state contends that the defendant's motion to quash presents a defense on the merits of the charge and is therefore, not the correct procedural mechanism for attacking the validity of the defendant's prior DWI convictions. To support its argument, the state points to the fact that the defendant's motion to quash is not based on any of the grounds listed in the Code of Criminal Procedure.
LSA-C.Cr.P. arts. 532 and 534 contain a list of grounds for motions to quash bills of information. We note that the list of grounds contained in these articles are merely illustrative. State v. Tanner, 425 So.2d 760 (La. 1983); State v. Cooper, 449 So.2d 1376 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1984). Thus, the fact that the defendant's motion is not based on any of the grounds contained in these articles is not dispositive of the issues raised in this appeal.
We further note that in a similar case, a panel of this court recently addressed the propriety of a motion to quash. In State v. Pertuit, 98-1264 (La. App. 5 Cir. 4/27/99), 734 So.2d 144, the state argued that a motion to quash was not the correct procedural vehicle for attacking the use of the defendant's prior DWI guilty plea. Addressing that argument, this court stated, "the issues raised by the defendant in the motion to quash do not go to the merits of the case, but rather focus on the constitutional validity of the defendant's prior DWI conviction. Thus, we find a motion to quash was, in fact, the correct procedural vehicle by which to raise these issues."
Finally, the state's argument ignores the large number of reported decisions in which a defendant charged with a multiple offense DWI sought to attack the constitutionality of the prior pleas through a motion to quash and the appellate courts did not question the use of that procedural vehicle. In State v. Carlos, 98-1366 (La. 7/7/99), 738 So.2d 556, the Louisiana Supreme Court was called upon to decide whether the burden-shifting principles for habitual offender proceedings, set forth in State v. Shelton, 6
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