underage consumption
Last fall, my son was ticketed for underage consumption of alcohol while at a party. He entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment and was scheduled to appear in court, months later, for a pre-trial hearing. He missed the hearing and a warrent was issued for his arrest. He was picked up last weekend and spent the night in jail, which is how I found out about the charge.
He is scheduled to appear in court soon. Do I need to hire an attorney and what consequences will he be facing? This is his first offense.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: underage consumption
This is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days or $1000 or both. Now that he has missed his court appearance and did nothing about it until he was picked up, the consequences could be substantial.
Exactly how it will be handled depend on what county you are in, who the prosecutor is, who the judge is, what their policies are and what mood everyone is in. It's all very quirky, and frankly God only knows what will happen based on what you have told here so far.
Not having a lawyer represent him could be a big mistake. One thing's for sure: it will be harsher now than it would have been if he had made his court appearances as scheduled.
Re: underage consumption
Though the maximum criminal penalty for underage consumption is 90 days, + $1,0000; rarely does a judge give a convicted person the maximum. A defendant would have to have a terrible record of many priors to warrant that. Beyond that, it is difficult to say what a likely sentence would be, since there are many variables including, what happened, how much evidence there is, such as admissions, the prior record, whether you have a lawyer, etc.
There is no question that it is better to have a good lawyer defending you. The only question is whether it is worth it. I would say that it is worth it, simply to do everything possible to keep the persons "criminal record" clean.
Call me you'd like help with this.
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