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newsnews
Court ruling helps Alabama DUI offenders
By By PHILLIP RAWLS
Associated Press Writer
Published: July 11, 2008
Published: July 11, 2008
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The state Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday that could benefit some repeat offenders of Alabama's laws against drunken driving.
The state's highest court said drunken driving convictions in municipal court don't count when determining whether repeat offenders have the four DUI convictions that can send them to state prison. But the 6-3 decision will have limited impact.
That's because the Legislature rewrote Alabama's drunken driving law while the case was pending to make sure municipal court convictions would count for future cases, defense attorney Don Chapman of Decatur said.
Chapman defended Arthur Felton Holbert, who was arrested for driving under the influence in Decatur in March 2005.
State law makes a fourth or subsequent DUI conviction a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Holbert had four prior convictions. Two were in state courts for violating the state law against drunken driving, but two were in municipal courts in Decatur and Hillsboro for violating city ordinances against drunken driving.
A Morgan County jury convicted Holbert of felony DUI based on his prior record, and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction.
But a majority of the Supreme Court disagreed. It said the state's law on felony DUIs as it existed in 2005 pointed only to convictions under state law, and did not mention convictions in municipal courts for violating city ordinances against drunken driving.
The court's minority said the majority was taking a narrow view of the law, and convictions in municipal court should count.
Alabama's prison system was handling 592 felony DUI offenders at the end of the last fiscal year. Officials were unsure Friday how many of those involved convictions in municipal court.
Chapman said many with municipal convictions won't be affected because the Legislature rewrote the law in 2006.
The Legislature specified that municipal court convictions and out-of-state convictions within the previous five years would count toward determining whether future DUI arrests in Alabama were felonies.
Chapman said people with cases prior to the change in the law could be affected by the Supreme Court ruling Friday. He noted that he had one other case pending that would be affected.
Joy Patterson, spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, also pointed to the change in law as limiting the impact of the decision.
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