CITY OF MONROE
v.
Lonnie GOLDSTON.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
PER CURIAM.
Granted. A melee involving relator and members of the Monroe City Police "Jump Team" led to relator's arrest and conviction in the Monroe City Court for various municipal offenses in March, 1994. Relator appealed to the Fourth Judicial District Court, La.R.S. 13:1896(B), which affirmed four of the verdicts but reversed his conviction for disturbing the peace with profane language. The Second Circuit denied review on grounds that the evidence supported the other verdicts returned by the city court and relator has sought relief in this Court from his convictions and sentences for criminal trespass, interfering with a police officer, resisting arrest, and simple battery on a police officer. After an independent review of the testimony at trial, we grant the relator's application and set aside his remaining convictions and sentences.
*429 Relator's confrontation with members of the "Jump Team," a unit designed to address problems in Monroe's high crime areas, occurred on March 5, 1993, in a parking lot of the Parkview Apartments, a large housing complex, where relator was supervising his nieces and nephews while his sister, who lived in the complex, went shopping for a barbecue they had planned. The officers were investigating an unrelated incident involving teenagers drinking and reportedly playing with a gun (later determined to be a BB gun), and Officer Phil Stansell sought to clear an area approximately 50 yards away where a large number of bystanders had gathered. The officer came upon relator, who had been sitting on a car with one of his young nephews, and told him to move on with the others. Relator stood his ground and suggested in words meant for everyone around him that "the only problem he saw was the police." Stansell then grabbed relator's arm and attempted to arrest him for interfering with an officer and for criminal trespass. Relator pulled back and the arrest ultimately required several other members of the Jump Team, including Victor, the canine partner of Officer Vince Hodnutt, who observed Stansell speak at length with relator and drove his patrol unit over to back up his fellow officer. In the fracas, Stansell suffered a long cut extending from behind his ear to his cheek, caused by the ring relator was wearing when he lashed out during a struggle to break free of the hold placed around his neck by Officer Hodnett. Relator and Hodnett then fell to the ground as Victor leapt from the patrol unit and began biting relator's legs and arms. Hodnett eventually pulled Victor off relator, who required medical treatment at a local hospital before his incarceration in the Monroe city jail.
Less than a month before this incident, Officer Stansell had participated with other officers of the Jump Team in the removal of relator from the same parking lot of the complex. The police had acted on a complaint by employees of the property management company operating Parkview that relator appeared to be sleeping overnight in the van he had parked on the lot in violation of HUD regulations. On that occasion, Officer Torregrossa informed relator that "he would have to leave due to the complex not allowing people to live in their vehicles." Torregrossa told relator not to return. According to Jeff Underwood, the vice president of the property management company, Parkview Apartments had given the police general authority to remove undesirable persons from the property by enforcing the city's ordinances. To that end, the company had erected a security fence around the property patrolled by private security officers and maintained a list of individuals permanently banned from the complex. That fence and list did not exist in March of 1993, however, and to Underwood's knowledge, no person had been permanently banned from the complex at that time. Parkview leases otherwise state that residents are allowed to have guests visit them and require notice to management only if the guests stay more than 14 days.
Section 12-90 of the Monroe Criminal Code provides in pertinent part that criminal trespass is "[ ] the refusing to leave the premises of another when reasonably requested to do so by the lawful custodian or his representative...." The provision is similar to La.R.S. 14:63, the state criminal trespass law, under which a reasonable contemporaneous or written request to leave the premises is "an indispensable element of the offense." State in the Interest of J.A.V.,
Nor did relator violate Section 181.1 of the Monroe Criminal Code, which defines the offense of interfering with a police officer as "the intentional delaying or obstructing of an individual acting in his official capacity *430 and authorized by law to make a lawful arrest, investigation, seizure of property, or service of process." At the time Stansell asked him to move on, relator was not under arrest nor suspected of any crime. The ongoing investigation did not involve relator and took place approximately 50 yards away from where he was sitting. Compare State v. Pickering,
Because no probable cause existed for relator's arrest on either of the misdemeanor charges, relator had the right to use "such force as is necessary" to resist his unlawful arrest. City of Monroe v. Ducas,
Accordingly, relator's remaining convictions for criminal trespass, interfering with a police officer, resisting arrest, and simple battery on a police officer are reversed, his sentences vacated, and he is ordered discharged from custody as to those offenses.
KIMBALL, J., not on panel.