Article reprinted with permission THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES LIBRARY - 12/04/94 State Could be Without DUI Law

The Associated Press

BAY MINETTE, Ala. … While the rest of the nation observes National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month, Alabama officials are trying to make sure the state still has a law against drunken driving.

Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone said Alabama will be without a law for drunken driving by motorists if three court appeals aren't successful.

Baldwin County District Judge Lyn Stuart has thrown out three recent drunken driving cases in the southwest Alabama County. The problem arose over the wording of the Alabama Boating Safety Reform Act passed by the Legislature in April.

Whetstone said the act was intended to apply the same penalties for drunken boaters as for drunken drivers. But under Mrs. Stuart's interpretation, the boating act repealed and replaced the drunken driving law for land vehicles.

"We have reviewed the law and believe the judge to be in error," Whetstone said Friday. He said he is appealing the three dismissals and expects the cases will eventually be heard by the Alabama Supreme Court.

The legal dispute over the drunken driving law coincide with tion month.
If the ruling by the Baldwin County judge is upheld on appeal, all drunken driving cases dating back to the law's enactment in April could be overturned and any fines would have to be repaid to the motorists, Whetstone said.

Others say the issue won't survive.

The defense has been raised in several Alabama counties, but other judges have not accepted defense lawyers' claim that the boating law replaces the law for drunken driving, said Rosa Davis, who heads the attorney general's criminal appeals division.

"A number of counties have dealt with it and I don't know of a single judge that's thrown out a case before Baldwin," Ms. Davis said. Bernice Pitsis, state chairwoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving of Alabama, said the organization was concerned when the issue first came to its attention in a Madison County court case six months ago.

Huntsville attorney Phil Price, who raised the defense in Mrs. Stuart's courtroom late last month, said the wording of the boating act does matter.

"At the end of the act, it says this repeals all other acts that are inconsistent with it," he said.

He added that by using the phrase "on the waters of this state," and not mentioning highways or roads, the act "excludes everything else."

But Whetstone said judges must take the Legislature's intent into consideration when ruling.

Jim Smith, elected last month as a Madison Circuit Court judge, supported the boating legislation while serving as a senator from Huntsville last spring.

He said he was surprised that a judge had disregarded the legislative intent of the law and sided with a defense lawyer.

"These people are taking a real contorted, or distorted, view of the intent of the law," he said.