The headline sounds ominous.

Justice Is Unequal for Parents Who Host Teen Drinking Parties

Or it does until you actually read the article.

When police showed up recently at a Walt Whitman High School graduation party, three young people were drinking in a vehicle parked outside the Bethesda home. Then three more teenagers walked up with a six-pack in a bag. While the police were dealing with them, the mother came outside, saw the officers and ran back in.

Montgomery County police wrote dozens of citations against the minors who were found to have been drinking at the party. The party-hosting parents were given two civil citations each, carrying fines of up to $1,500 per infraction.

The outcome for the Bethesda parents was considerably less severe than for a Charlottesville area mother and stepfather who recently began serving 27-month jail sentences for hosting an underage drinking party. In Virginia and the District, parents who host such parties can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor that can carry jail time. In Maryland, hosting an underage drinking party is punished with a civil penalty, payable with a fine, even for multiple offenses.

Oh, it isn't the unequal application of the laws -- it is that the District of Columbia and the two states that surround it each have different laws dealing with the same offense. That makes a world of difference in how this story should be presented, don't you think?

Unless, of course, the Washington Post is angling for the notion that all laws should be identical in all 50 states, under the notion that we should be the United STATE of America, not the United STATES of America

Posted by: Greg at 03:24 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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