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ACLU Wins Challenge to North Carolina's Cohabitation Ban (7/20/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: media@aclu.org911 Dispatcher Lost Her Job Because She Lived With Her Boyfriend
"Out
Of Wedlock"
BURGAW, NC - The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina today
applauded a state court decision declaring the state's 201-year-old ban on
cohabitation to be unconstitutional.
The ACLU had filed the
case on behalf of Debora Hobbs, an unmarried woman who lost her job as a 911
dispatcher with the Pender County Sheriff's Office simply because she chose to
live with her unmarried boyfriend.
"I am absolutely thrilled with
the court's decision," said Hobbs. "I just didn't think it was any of my
employer's business whether I was married or not, as long as I was good at my
job, and I am happy that no one else will ever have to be subjected to this
law. I couldn't believe that I was being given this ultimatum to choose
between my boyfriend or my livelihood because the Sheriff was enforcing a
201-year-old law that clearly violates my civil rights."
In
February 2004, shortly after starting her job as a dispatcher for the Pender
County Sheriff's Office, Hobbs was told that she would be required to marry her
partner, move out of the house they shared together, or leave her job.
The law, General Statute § 14-184, states: "If any man and
woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate,
bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2
misdemeanor."
In a ruling issued late yesterday, State Superior
Court Judge Benjamin Alford found the law to be unconstitutional both on its
face and as applied to Hobbs. The court ruled that the cohabitation
statute violated Hobbs' constitutional right to liberty, citing a 2003 U.S.
Supreme Court case called Lawrence v. Texas which struck down a Texas sodomy
law.
"The Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas
stands for the proposition that the government has no business regulating
relationships between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home,"
said Jennifer Rudinger, Executive Director of the ACLU of North Carolina.
"North Carolina's cohabitation law is not only patently unconstitutional, but
the idea that the government would criminalize people's choice to live together
out of wedlock in this day and age defies logic and common
sense."
The court's final order is being drafted and is expected to
be signed by the judge within the next few days. Attorneys for the state
and the sheriff have not yet indicated whether they plan to appeal the
ruling.
Cooperating attorneys for the ACLU of North Carolina Legal
Foundation representing Hobbs are Peter J. Isajiw, Harry P. Cohen, Ivan J.
Dominguez and David J. Ward with the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham &
Taft LLP in New York and Jeffrey S. Miller of Jacksonville, NC.
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