Montgomery, AL – The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that 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.
The court issued a 6-3 decision Friday in the first-of-its-kind case in Alabama.
State law makes a fourth or subsequent drunken driving conviction into a felony, punishable by a prison sentence. A majority of the Supreme Court said state law refers only to convictions in state court, not those in municipal court.
The Supreme Court's ruling came in the case of Arthur Felton Holbert of Morgan County. He had five drunken driving convictions, but two of them were in municipal court.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)