opinion: Per Curiam.
  Petitioner, who was before the state court “on a charge of vagrancy,” raised several objections to a denial of a preliminary hearing. The third of these reads as follows:
  “. . . that the bill of information charges no offense known to law and if it charges an offense within the meaning and intentment [sic] of a Louisiana statute, then both the statute and the bill of information are unconstitutional, null, and void, as being violative of the guaranties contained in the United States Constitution and of the Louisiana Constitution and Laws; . . .”
  Louisiana Rev. Stat. § 15:154 provides that “after an indictment found or an information filed, it shall be wholly within the discretion of the district court, and not subject to review by any other court, to order or to refuse to order a preliminary examination; . . .”
  Petitioner, when he asked for a preliminary hearing, was incarcerated and charged by affidavit with the offense of vagrancy. Neither an indictment nor a bill of information had been filed against him. In that state of the proceedings the motion for a preliminary examination was granted and a hearing set for March 8, 1962, and then continued to March 9. On March 9 the District Attorney filed an information charging the accused with the crime of vagrancy. Thereupon, the district judge recalled his order for a preliminary examination.
  Petitioner appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, asking for a writ of habeas corpus and alternatively for certiorari, mandamus, and prohibition. In that application the remedies of certiorari, mandamus and prohibition were sought alternatively for denial of a preliminary examination and for having to stand trial under the Vagrancy Act.
  In that application the petitioner said:
  “The bill of information charged no criminal offense, and if it did set forth an alleged offense in the language of a statute, then such statute and the bill of information are unconstitutional, null and void, being violative of both Federal and State Constitutions.”
  In the prayer for relief contained in the application he asked in the alternative that the Court rule “upon the constitutionality” of the vagrancy statute and whether it and other Louisiana statutes and constitutional provisions cited “are contrary to and violative of the provisions of the United States Constitution, and in particular the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments thereto.”
  Thus when petitioner sought review of the denial of a preliminary hearing, he tried to raise the question of the constitutionality of the vagrancy statute.
  The Supreme Court denied the writs on March 16, 1962, paying “Writ refused. There is no error of law in the ruling complained of.” The petition for certiorari to this Court was filed March 31, 1962. Two months later, i. e., May 31, 1962, petitioner appeared in the Lafayette city court (to which the case had been transferred by the District Court) and pleaded guilty to the charge of vagrancy. He was then sentenced to serve four months in jail, but given credit for the time served and forthwith discharged. We granted certiorari, 372 U. S. 906, and the case has been argued.
  In Louisiana it seems that, with exceptions not relevant here, only orders which finally dispose of criminal cases can be appealed. See La. Rev. Stat. §15:540. “A case is finally disposed of by any judgment which dismisses the prosecution, whether before or after verdict, that grants or refuses to grant a new trial, that arrests or refuses to arrest judgment, or that imposes sentence.” La. Rev. Stat. § 15:541.
  The “ruling complained of” as referred to by the Louisiana Supreme Court can only be the order recalling the order for a preliminary hearing. Under our decisions in the criminal field, such denial of intermediate relief in state criminal cases is similar to an order overruling a plea in bar (Eastman v. Ohio, 299 U. S. 505) or overruling a demurrer to an indictment (Polakow’s Realty Experts v. Alabama, 319 U. S. 750). Hence under 28 U. S. C. § 1257, denial of the preliminary hearing in a vagrancy case of this character is not a “final” judgment. We therefore dismiss the writ for lack of jurisdiction, without any intimation as to what rights, if any, petitioner may have under the Civil Rights Acts.
  The statute challenged, La. Rev. Stat. § 14:107 (1962 Cum. Supp.), provides:
  “The following persons are and shall be guilty of vagrancy:
  “(8) Persons found in or near any structure, movable, vessel, or private grounds, without being able to account for their lawful presence therein; . . . .”
  We do not concern ourselves with the state law aspects of habeas corpus, which is, after all, only an alternative form of relief that was sought.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.