State Supreme Court: Georgia left turn law unconstitutional

This is kind of interesting. From the Georgia Supreme Court today:

MCNAIR V. THE STATE (S09A0487)

The Georgia Supreme Court has come down on the side of a motorist in reversing a lower court decision and ruling that Georgia’s law governing how to make a proper left turn is unconstitutional.

Today’s ruling stems from a 2007 incident in Whitfield County in which Todd Christopher McNair made a left turn onto a four-lane road, turning into the outer, right-hand lane of the two lanes heading east. A Dalton police officer pulled McNair over because he claimed the law required McNair to turn into the inner, left-hand lane closer to the oncoming traffic. McNair was arrested, tried and found guilty of breaking the law, Official Code of Georgia § 40-6-120 (a) (2). The law states that the approach to a left turn must be made from the extreme left-hand lane. Then the statute says: “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.”

The word “leave” in that sentence makes the statute subject to two “diametrically-opposite interpretations,” the Court finds, with one interpretation requiring the driver to move into the right lane and “leave” the extreme left-hand lane available to other traffic, and the other interpretation requiring the driver to “leave” or depart from the intersection and move into the extreme left-hand lane.

“We agree with McNair” that the statute is “unconstitutionally vague,” states today’s unanimous opinion, written by Presiding Justice Carol Hunstein. “The law is well established that a statute violates due process if it is so vague that persons of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.”