State v. FullerState v. Fuller
The defendant was convicted of driving whilе intoxicated, third offense,
Assignment No. 1
The defendant‘s motion to quash is based on the contention that an offense for driving while intoxicated must be prosecuted in the city court, if (as here) it occurs within municipal limits. The defendant contends that
A relied-on provisiоn that the city attorney shall file the charges when the violation occurs within the municipal limits refers, in context, to the authority and responsibility of the city attorney to prosecute in city court for violation of the state law, whenever the city cоurt does exercise any concurrent jurisdiction it has over the offense (i. e., in the instance of first and second offenders). Thе main purpose of
Assignment No. 2
By another motion, the defеndant sought to have his prosecution as a third offender dismissed. He contends that the first conviction was without counsel and, therefore, may not be counted as a prior conviction fоr purposes of imposing a greater punishment upon a subsеquent offense. State v. Strange, 308 So.2d 795 (La.1975); City of Monroe v. Fincher, 305 So.2d 108 (La.1974).
At the time, the city court in question did not keep formal minutes. Entries of actions taken in each prosecution were noted upon the bill of information. Based upon these contemporaneous entries (including the notation that thе defendant had retained a certain attorney), and upon certain admissions by the defendant, the trial court found that the first conviction‘s record correctly reflected that the рlea of guilty was entered pursuant to representation by сounsel.
We do not find merit in this assignment of error.
Assignment No. 3
The trial court refused to grant the defendant‘s request fоr a special charge to the jury that the court minutes of the earlier conviction must show either that the defendant was represented by counsel or else had waived such representation. As earlier noted, the court records of the eаrlier conviction showed that counsel had been retained, but the court kept no formal minutes at the time. Under the circumstаnces, however, the regularly maintained records were not silent as to the representation of the defendant by cоunsel at the time of his earlier conviction. (See discussion above of second assignment of error.)
The special charge as requested required further explanation and was not entirely correct. Therefore, the trial court committed no error by failing to give it.
Decree
Accordingly, the conviction and sentence are affirmed.
Affirmed.