Wrong Plate / Wrong Vehicle / Wrong Make
Louisiana citations frequently mismatch one or more identifying fields. Plate-number transcription errors are common with parking enforcement officers using handheld units; LPR (license plate reader) software OCR errors substitute B/8, O/0, I/1, S/5. A citation describing the wrong make, model, color, or plate is unenforceable: the City must prove the vehicle cited is yours. La. C.C.P. art. 854 requires every petition to contain factual averments with reasonable particularity; a citation is the equivalent for traffic enforcement.
Legal basis
La. R.S. §32:398 (citation contents); La. C.C.P. art. 854 (pleading particularity, applied analogously); New Orleans Code §154-1701
Sample appeal wording
Central Adjudication Bureau Re: Citation [CITATION_NUMBER] CONTEST – CITATION DESCRIBES WRONG VEHICLE The citation must be dismissed because it does not describe my vehicle: • Citation states: Plate [WRONG_PLATE], Make [WRONG_MAKE], Model [WRONG_MODEL], Color [WRONG_COLOR] • Actual vehicle: Plate [MY_PLATE], Make [MY_MAKE], Model [MY_MODEL], Color [MY_COLOR] • Registration card and photographs attached. Louisiana, as a civil law jurisdiction, does not allow the prosecution to amend a citation to cure substantive identification errors after the fact (La. C.Cr.P. art. 487 by analogy; La. C.C. art. 9 strict construction). The mismatch is not 'harmless' — the City has not proved the cited vehicle is mine. I request immediate dismissal. [NAME] | [ADDRESS] | [DATE]
Replace [PARKING DATE], [NtK DATE] etc. with your own dates before sending.
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- La. R.S. §32:398
- La. C.C.P. art. 854
- La. C.C. art. 9