<p>Inparent, if a judge has already decided that this kid has poor impulse control, hearing that this couple was willing to drive inebriated and risk the lives of their neighbors (imagine a dad driving to 7/11 for milk for his kid’s breakfast cereal) in order to have sex… boy, don’t want to complicate an already impulsive narrative.</p>
<p>Your lawyer will help you frame the story in a way which presents the facts in the least inflammatory way. But the family can help by being proactive, dropping the denial, etc.</p>
<p>I am not sure if you saw my post buried in the rest around page 3 or 4, but I am in NC and my child and I walked this same path a few years ago. Please if anything, get a good attorney who is experienced in DUI and your local courts. This can and will get expensive. Our child worked and that helped a great deal as we are by no means well off.</p>
<p>My child’s case was hammered out by the attorney and Asst. DA before they even went before the judge. Asst DA stated the facts of the case, the attorney said his part and the judge just asked my child a few questions to make sure they understood what was happening (age 16 at the time) and then signed off on the agreement. No big trial or anything of the sort. Took all of 15 minutes. Not every case will go that smoothly, but that was our experience and we did have some extenuating issues too. Not a cut and dry DUI.</p>
<p>Things did work out the best they could for our child and we were lucky. NC does have some of the strictest DUI laws in the country, which are good as they have taught my child a HUGE lesson. But, beware that 16 and 17 year olds are treated by NC courts as adults. NC and NY are the only 2 states in the country that do this. So the way an underage DUI is handled in other states is not the way it is handled here in NC.</p>
<p>Please feel free to PM me and I would be glad to share more details of my child’s case.</p>
<p>thank you, OP, for being so open with your situation and for providing a forum for this important conversation.</p>
<p>The daughter of a friend was arrested in NC for carrying an open container; she was a freshman at a school in NC, unaware of local laws (true for every freshman?!), and left a party with a cup of beer. She was, of course, also underage. The result was a very expensive and hard lesson and a great deal of anxiety until the daughter completed all the steps that allowed her case to be closed. </p>
<p>My son will be 21 when he returns to school this fall; we have been very clear about the temptations he will have to buy for younger friends and how he must at all costs avoid those temptations.</p>
<p>Yes, thank you OP for sharing such a painful and personal experience. It really got me thinking and it is time to have a “renewal talk” with my kids.</p>
<p>People probably think I’m nuts when asked what are some things you might not think to ask during a college visit and I say ask what the drinking and drug policies are. Kids (and parents) need to know whether this campus/community are the kind that are looking to bust kids or that turn a blind eye to underage drinking as long as it’s done responsibly. What are the town-gown relations like? Are the cops hanging just off fraternity row waiting to catch kids as they’re leaving?</p>
<p>I’m not saying that one way is right or wrong, but you need to know and think about what this might mean for your kid. Will a strict, dry campus create an environment where if a kid drinks too much friends are afraid to call for help for fear of getting in trouble themselves? Will a campus with free-flowing alcohol be the best fit for your kid?</p>
<p>Re post #136. Courts do not want to hear excuses or explanations for unlawful conduct. That suggest a rationalization rather than acceptance of responsibility.</p>
<p>Like many other states, NC has a zero-tolerance statute for teenage drinking and driving. So a teenager who is driving his date to the prom and plans to have sex afterward should avoid drinking altogether. To offer up an explanation as to the reason why a kid, knowing he was too drunk to drive, decided to risk it anyway is doubly damning. This is the classic example of why lawyers advise their clients to keep their mouths shut – the explanation the kid gave to his father contains a legal admission (that he knew he was too drunk to drive, but did it anyway), that renders him more, not less, culpable. If there had been an injury accident, that would be a very harmful thing for the defendant in a case to say. </p>
<p>The kid should let his lawyer do the talking in court. He probably won’t need to say anything to the judge until the day of sentencing. His lawyer will probably then advise that he should make a statement that demonstrates full acceptance of responsibility and remorse, and an acknowledgment of the seriousness of the charges. (But his lawyer will know best). In many courts the penalties the judge gives out for DUI cases are pretty much fixed in stone – it may be a situation where there is nothing the kid can say to make things better, and saying the wrong thing might just tick off the judge and potentially make things worse.</p>
A young man has to have put away quite a few to get to a 0.16 - that’s what, about ten shots over the course of three hours*? Then he was f–ing stupid enough to get on the road and, once on the road, speed with his girlfriend in the car? </p>
<p>I don’t think that elite college admissions is the biggest of your son’s problems. </p>
<p>*Using a blood alcohol calculator, assuming that your son is about 175 to 190 lbs.</p>
<p>And he had enough alcohol tolerance to do it. (Which is why I suspect a larger problem. But that’s for a professional, meeting with him face-to-face, to figure out.)</p>
<p>I am not a lawyer and knows little about courts/judges. But I have managed for a long time including some new college grads. When something goes wrong, don’t come to me with excuses and reasons, I don’t care and I don’t have time for them. What is important to me is what are you doing about it, how are you going to make it right and how will you make sure that it won’t happen again.</p>
<p>Well it was another hectic day for us. We met with his school this morning and had a long talk about what exactly happened and how the liquor got to the prom. The dean is going to do a full investigation and promised “changes” for the future. I think they’re as embarrassed as we are. </p>
<p>Our son is suspended for the rest of the week, has several hours of detention after that, will have to do some community service at the school over the summer, and will miss the first 3 weeks of the fall running season (spring track is over). He also volunteered to revive the school’s chapter of SADD and give a talk about his experience to his classmates in the fall, which was entirely his idea. We’re encouraged by this.</p>
<p>We had a good meeting with the substance abuse counselor. She did a full one-on-one screening with and told us that he was fairly low-risk for substance abuse and didn’t seem to have any addictions or dependencies. This counselor recommended that we get him help for dealing with peer pressure and for the trauma that comes with an arrest like this.</p>
<p>His charges were filed in court today–DWI Level 1, Driving after Consuming While Under 21, and Possession of Alcohol under 19. Like many of you have said they consider a 17-year-old in NC to be an adult so he’s not in the juvenile system. His plea date is June 18.</p>
<p>I did a little looking at colleges today and UNC-CH does require applicants to report all convictions and seems to take them pretty seriously. I’m guessing this will be the case at most schools he’s interested in applying to.</p>
<p>This to shall pass. Put one foot in front of the other. He won’t be the first applicant to be convicted of an alcohol-related offense. Admissions officers deal with teens all the time. The job will be to convince them (honestly) that he is low-risk. And it can be done.</p>
<p>Also, re: ariesathena, post #148–he’s only 140 lbs, at 5’7". He told us he drank about 8 or 9 ounces of vodka, which the BAC charts suggest could get someone of his size to .16. I’m not questioning that what he did was overwhelmingly stupid, but I’d like to believe he’s still a smart kid who just made an awful mistake.</p>
<p>I realize that college applications are probably not top of mind right now, but it seems to me that if it appears unlikely that the DUI is going to go away, it might be preferable to be upfront instead of minimizing or avoiding it.</p>
<p>For example, I could see how writing about SADD and student outreach as a result of his experience could make for some compelling reading. </p>
<p>I’d be interested to hear how other posters might react to that… perhaps the key is whether the DUI will be disclosed elsewhere in the application. If you are guaranteed that the college will not have access to this information, then maybe it would be better not to bring it up.</p>
<p>On the college front, if he succumbs that easily to peer pressure (from “not his usual crowd”), colleges with a heavy drinking culture may be more dangerous for him.</p>
<p>NCDad, I’m an NCMom with two S’s. Both managed to get themselves into trouble with alcohol…no dui but underage drinking for one(at age 16) and two underage drinking tickets for other son (freshman year of college) with the added bonus of resisting arrest (ran from the cop) to the second drinking ticket. That one got him a free night in the city jail w/ all the thugs on the 4th of July. We thought he was at a friends house. Imagine my horror when the phone rang at 6am tellling us we could come down to the city jail and pick up our S1, our popular, star student,never got in trouble,teacher’s favorite kid.</p>
<p>It was a big fat mess…names in the local newspaper,S2 and two others suspended fr. playing football for the homecoming game.Both of these happended w/in just a few months of each other. I thought I’d lose my mind.</p>
<p>S1 scared he would lose his full ride college scholarship. Like your S, mine were smart kids who did dumb stuff.<br>
We got lawyers who got their tickets dismissed with some alcohol edu. classes and community service. S1 didn’t lose his scholarships. I’d like to say they never drank again but that would be a lie. They still partied in college w/ their friends. There was no stopping that but they learned to keep it under control and usually walked to their party destinations (lived two blocks off campus in old neighborhood full of student rentals) or nearby bars. Both graduated fr. NC public u’s and are doing well. They’re responsible hardworking young men.</p>
<p>I know the angst you’re feeling. It’s terrible but I promise your family will get through it and get over it and it will all work itself out. Good luck to your family.</p>
<p>OP - I have been following this thread and want to thank you for sharing. I have a d13 and S15 - I have definitely learned to never say never. You seem to be handling this EXTREMELY well and appropriately! Goodluck - I wish the best for your family.</p>
<p>NC Dad - thanks for your honesty and sharing this story. I hope it all works out and it looks like your son is already moving forward to try to make this as much of a positive as he can. Thank God no one was hurt, that is something for which you all can be incredibly grateful. Good kids sometimes do very, very stupid things (with their underdeveloped brains), but it does not mean they are not good kids. </p>
<p>I do think the actions you (and he) have already taken will help with the judge. Please do some hard research and pick the best lawyer you can; spare no expense.</p>
<p>I too agree that the surmising about “alcoholism” is very premature. Given his size and relative inexperience with alcohol, it makes perfect sense that drinking straight vodka in a short period of time would cause such a high level of intoxication (thereby really impairing his judgment). </p>
<p>I may have missed it, but what is/was the school’s reaction to the fact that there had been drinking going on post-track meets? That sounded to me like there is a culture of drinking in the track program that needs to be addressed pronto. I would be pretty peeved if the coach(es) & team leaders are not made to answer for serious breaches of what I’m guessing (given his athletic punishment) are established no-alcohol/drugs policies within the school/sports programs. What a poor example for those athletes (although I am not naive enough not to realize this goes on everywhere), but it’s pretty frustrating that the culture on that team apparently introduced him to drinking in the first place.</p>