The following opinion was released by the Louisiana Supreme Court on June 3, 2008:

• State of Louisiana v. Jones (Opinion by Victory, J., joined by Knoll, Traylor, Kimball, Weimer, JJ.; dissent, with reasons, by Calogero, C.J.; dissent without reasons by Johnson, J.). Affirming conviction of defendant for attempted obstruction of justice for dropping baggie of marijuana out of his pocket while being admonished by police officers for drinking beer too close to a high school football game. The defendant argued that, because he was not under investigation for marijuana possession at the time he dropped the bag, he was not interfering with a criminal investigation but was preventing one from occurring in the first place. The Court observed that other state courts are nearly unanimous in holding that something more than mere dropping of drugs or drug paraphernalia is required to trigger an obstruction of justice charge, that the defendant must do something to impair the evidence’s integrity. The Court then distinguished these opinions as mainly concerned with the obstruction statute from the Model Penal Code, and found that Louisiana’s statute is much broader. The Court held that mere movement of the drugs, without further effort to conceal, can trigger the statute; the Court rejected the defendant’s distinction based on the fact that he was not under investigation for drug possession at the moment he dropped the baggie, finding that the statute applied to impairment of both an ongoing investigation and “any future investigation.” Slip op. at 10. Chief Justice Calogero dissented on the basis that the term “movement” in the statute, because it is used to define the word “tampering,” must require a narrow construction that involves more than mere throwing down of the drugs. Chief Justice Calogero also opined that such overzealous use of the felony obstruction of justice statute in conjunction with the misdemeanor possession statute, could subject defendants to double jeopardy, as the mere movement, in the broad sense employed by the majority, requires nothing more than what is required to “possess” the marijuana in the underlying possession offense.