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June 9, 2009

Whitfield County man cheers state Supreme Court ruling

Mark Millican

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the state’s left turn law is vague and unconstitutional. A Whitfield County man challenged the law after being arrested by a Dalton Police officer two years ago.

Todd Christopher McNair, who is black, said Monday he thought he was pulled over on the basis of racial profiling. He said he will talk to an attorney about a civil lawsuit alleging racial harassment.

“It feels good,” McNair said of the court’s decision. “I’m going to celebrate. I was already thinking of getting a civil suit going because I knew I was in the right and we have a good case. That officer was hateful.”

Police spokesman Bruce Frazier said the department has not seen a complaint of racial profiling and would investigate if such a complaint is made.

“At the time the stop was made it was under the pretense of the accepted interpretation of the law,” Frazier said. “Our officer believed this gentleman violated it and that’s why he was stopped. The state now says the law is vague but the accepted interpretation up to this point was that it was an improper left turn.”

McNair, 29, was arrested in June 2007 and charged with the improper left turn after turning onto eastbound U.S. Highway 41 from a parking area at the Best Western Inn on Chattanooga Road near I-75. He pulled into the outermost lane. A Dalton police officer in an unmarked car who stopped McNair said the law required McNair to turn into the innermost lane.

McNair was also charged with DUI and obstruction of an officer. He was found not guilty of those charges by a jury in March 2008 but was convicted of making the improper turn. McNair appealed the conviction.

McNair was on probation at the time of the arrest. His probation was revoked and he spent four months in jail. According to the Georgia Department of Corrections Web site, he was convicted of possession of cocaine in 2003 and served one year in prison. He was convicted of theft by receiving stolen property in 2000 and was sentenced to two years, 11 months and 14 days in prison.

The law states: “The driver of a vehicle intending to turn left shall approach the turn in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the direction of travel of such vehicle. Whenever practicable, the left turn shall be made to the left of the center of the intersection and so as to leave the intersection or other location in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction as such vehicle on the roadway being entered.”

Presiding Judge Carol W. Hunstein wrote that “the vagueness arises in the second half of the second sentence ... It is the use of the verb ‘leave’ and its interplay with ‘lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction’ in (the statute) that creates the ambiguity in the statute because of the diametrically-opposite interpretations that can be given this word.”

Hunstein explained how the word “leave” could be interpreted two “contradictory” ways so that “persons of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.”

“We’re definitely satisfied and feel the court made the right decision,” said Benjamin Goldberg, who represented McNair through the public defender’s office. “The court’s decision was well-reasoned and well-written.”

District Attorney Kermit McManus believes the law is “not unconstitutionally vague.”

“We respectfully disagree with the Supreme Court in their decision with this case,” he said after reading the seven-page decision. “They used a very strained definition of the term ‘leave’ regarding traffic in the roadway making a left-hand turn, and it gives a very strained result.”

McManus admitted that like many statutes, the law is “difficult to read.”

“The law is written to cover many scenarios,” he said, “but if you read it carefully, it makes perfect sense. (McNair’s defense) says it’s hard to understand, but that doesn’t make it vague. You have to read it word for word. Some statutes are written the way they are to cover a lot of different scenarios — they’re not written the way we talk.”

McManus agreed with the court that “leave” was “the controlling word” in the statute.



On the Web

www.gasupreme.us/opinion_lists/2009_opinions.php#_0608



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