CORRECTION

A 1B story Saturday incorrectly stated who is affected by a judge's ruling that a state law making cohabitation a crime is unconstitutional. The ruling affects Pender County Sheriff Carson Smith, Attorney General Roy Cooper and the State of North Carolina.

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Legal experts said Friday that a Superior Court judge declaring a law that makes it a crime for unmarried couples to live together unconstitutional doesn't apply statewide.

Judge Ben Alford's ruling affects only those involved in the litigation: the Pender County Sheriff's Office, Pender County Sheriff Carson Smith, Ben David, the district attorney in Pender and New Hanover counties, and N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper. A 1A story Friday reported that the judge's ruling applied statewide. But the ruling would have a statewide impact only if it were upheld on appeal.

The scholars say law enforcement officers and district attorneys elsewhere in the state still could prosecute couples living together out of wedlock.

"It's not until it gets up to the Court of Appeals that it applies statewide," said Dan Pollitt, a constitutional law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

James C. Drennan, a professor at UNC-CH's Institute of Government, added, "It's not binding in the same way that any appellate ruling is."

Alford ruled in a case brought by Debora Lynn Hobbs, a Pender County emergency dispatcher who lost her job after the sheriff discovered she had a live-in boyfriend. The sheriff gave her an ultimatum: move, marry or leave your job. She quit.

Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union filed Hobbs' lawsuit -- not seeking money or her job back, but rather a legal ruling on the 201-year-old law.

Alford ruled that the law was unconstitutional citing a U.S. Supreme Court case called Lawrence v. Texas that struck down Texas' sodomy law and recognized a right to sexual privacy.

Complications

Drennan said the ruling does present a possible dilemma for David, the prosecutor in New Hanover and Pender counties. While the Pender County Sheriff's Office cannot charge anyone, he said, if another law enforcement agency in the two counties charged someone under the law, David, as the district attorney, would not be able to prosecute it.

What also complicates the matter is that Alford has yet to sign a final order, which will include an injunction. What that injunction will say is still unknown, and the lawyers who are drafting the injunction will not talk about it.

"The official order has not yet been issued by the judge, so we really can't comment on the specifics of what it might or might not do," Jennifer Rudinger, state executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement Friday.

The ACLU initially reported the judge's decision in a news release Thursday.

Rudinger is hopeful that Alford's ruling means this law will no longer be enforced in North Carolina.

"After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas and Judge Alford's ruling that this cohabitation ban is unconstitutional, it is highly unlikely that the cohabitation law will continue to be enforced in North Carolina," she said in a statement.

Some law enforcement officials said Friday that they don't pursue such charges already.

Rarely enforced law

About 74,000 unmarried couples live under one roof in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Census. The law has been enforced rarely: Only 35 people were charged between 1997 and 2003.

"I guarantee those cases were brought by some scorned husband or wife who is upset about losing their loved one," Branny Vickory, the district attorney in Wayne, Greene and Lenoir counties, said in an interview Friday.

Vickory explained that criminal charges do not have to be brought by law enforcement, but can be initiated by members of the public who ask a magistrate to sign an arrest warrant.

"The police aren't out there looking for those cases, and we're not drumming them up," Vickory added.

Cary Deputy Police Chief Pat Bazemore had a similar reaction to news about the judge's decision.

"It would not change our practice," Bazemore said. "I do not know of a case where we have ever charged anyone under this law."

And in Raleigh, police spokesman Jim Sughrue said, "It's not going to change our practices because we haven't been priortizing enforcing that law anyway."