City of Birmingham v. Mark Pettway

Summary

The court held that the City's declaratory-judgment action presented a live, justiciable controversy because the pleadings alleged an ongoing dispute over whether the sheriff had to accept warrantless arrestees, and the controversy was not made moot by termination of the parties' memorandum of understanding. Nevertheless, the court affirmed the judgment on the pleadings because no law required the sheriff to accept the City's arrestees before a magistrate issued a warrant or required him to execute ALEA Form 072. The court also rejected sovereign immunity as a bar to the statutory-construction claim.