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North Carolina v. Tucker12/4/1984
This unprecedented civil action poses many novel and interesting questions concerning the operation of the Declaratory Judgment Act, G.S. § 1-253 et seq. and the process of constitutional adjudication. The narrow legal issues presented by the State's appeal concern whether the complaint alleged a controversy justiciable under the Declaratory Judgment Act and whether the trial court was without jurisdiction to issue the writs of mandamus or prohibition to the judicial defendants. We hold that the State's complaint was properly dismissed and the petition properly denied. A brief summary of the events leading up to this
appeal will precede the examination of the jurisdictional and jurisprudential issues raised.
I.
The present action arose out of the Attorney General's attempt to secure an expedited and conclusive judicial determination of the constitutionality of the Safe Roads Act of 1983. The Act represents a comprehensive and unified approach to the problem of the drunken driver on North Carolina roadways. Its provisions fundamentally altered the substantive and procedural law concerning drunken driving, including the elements of the criminal offense; pre and post-arrest chemical and psycho-motor testing; trial and sentencing procedures, including evidentiary rules; and civil as well as criminal penalties. In short, the Act altered long standing trial practices in the district and superior courts.
The Safe Roads Act carried an effective date of 1 October 1983. Since that time, various defendants across the state have raised numerous questions concerning the Act's application and the constitutional validity of many of its provisions. These challenges initially arose in the district courts as a part of the criminal prosecutions for "driving while impaired" or in review proceedings following civil license revocations. As is customary, individual district court judges ruled upon the legal issues raised by individual defendants on a case-by-case basis. Case-by-case adjudication of challenges to the Safe Roads Act brought the not surprising result of conflicting judicial interpretation of the Act's various provisions. Particular judges found portions of the Act constitutionally infirm, whereas other judges upheld the identical provisions as constitutionally sound. While these cases made their way through the various stages of appeal to the superior court for trial de novo and then for further appellate review, the district courts in several of the state's most congested districts built huge backlogs of unadjudicated "driving while impaired" cases. In addition, the conflicting interpretations of the Act's validity from district to district led to different treatment for defendants charged with identical offenses under the Act.
Concern on the part of the Attorney General about the prospect of a long period of uneven enforcement of the Act's provisions while the various individual cases progressed through the superior and appellate courts prompted a comprehensive review
of the issues raised in the Safe Roads Act challenges. Based upon this review, the Attorney General chose to consolidate the various individual challenges to, and judicial rulings on, the main driving while impaired provisions of the Safe Roads Act and to present them for expedited judicial resolution in a single civil lawsuit.
Citing a massive backlog of pending driving while impaired cases in the district courts, limited statutory authority on the part of the State to appeal from adverse rulings in the district courts, and the lengthy, time-consuming process that would normally be afforded the State for resolution of these issues on a
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