That, and the ever and eternal sobbing of those that assume the law was for "those other guys", as they are being taken to the gallows. ;)
Posted on 01/31/2006 2:23:59 AM PST by freepatriot32
TROY, Mich. — A judge who sentenced three teenagers to probation for being drunk at their high school prom had them jailed after he saw them drinking and ridiculing him on a Web site one of them created.
"I told them, 'If you think this gives me any pleasure, you're wrong,'" Oakland County District Judge Michael Martone said after sentencing the last of the girls, Amanda Senopole, to 10 days in jail last week.
"You know, it's just a crying shame," Martone said. "I work my butt off trying to help kids like this, trying to figure out what works. And then they do things like this."
Senopole and eight other Troy Athens High School students were caught drinking at their prom last May. They were arraigned before Martone on misdemeanor charges of being a minor in possession of alcohol.
Martone, who had appeared at Athens High days before the prom to warn graduating seniors against drinking, sentenced the students to probation, fines, court costs, community service and alcohol-education classes. As a condition of their probation, he ordered them not to drink and to avoid places where alcohol is served or consumed.
Several months later, Martone was looking on the Internet for a news release on one of the many alcohol-prevention programs he has promoted during his 13 years on the bench. He entered his own name into a search engine and came to a site belonging to Mary Meerschaert, one of the Athens students he had sentenced.
His computer screen showed Meerschaert, Senopole and some of the other students who had appeared before him in court — making obscene gestures, chugging shots of Jagermeister liqueur, posing with beer cans stacked nearly to the ceiling and vomiting into toilets.
The Web site's headline included an abbreviated obscenity directed toward the judge.
Meerschaert, by now enrolled at Michigan State University, had used a digital camera to create an Internet photo gallery with students appearing passed out and couples playing a drinking game among its more than 400 images. Many of the picture captions were profane and directed at Martone.
The gallery also showed Senopole, Meerschaert's roommate, and another co-defendant in the prom incident, Rachel Stesney — enrolled at the University of Detroit Mercy — drinking at parties at Michigan State.
"They made a mockery of the legal system," Martone told the Detroit Free Press for a story published on Jan. 27. "I had to do something."
The judge showed the Web site to police and probation officers. It became legal evidence for charging the three women with contempt of court "for disobeying my direct order not to consume alcohol," Martone said.
Meerschaert and Stesney appeared before Martone on Dec. 23. Meerschaert admitted that her Web site did use profanity aimed at Martone, and that she had a drinking problem.
He sentenced her to 30 days in the Oakland County Jail, then sentenced Stesney to 15 days. They shared a cell during Christmas and New Year's Day.
Senopole appeared before Martone last week, telling him: "I have a new roommate now. She doesn't drink." She also said she earned a 3.6 grade-point average in the fall at Michigan State, and pledged she would introduce an alcohol-education program in her dormitory.
Martone doubled Senopole's hours of community service, to 100, but gave her less jail time than Meerschaert and Stesney — 10 days — and let her serve them one at a time, on weekends, "so it doesn't interrupt your studies."
Of the nine students who drank before the prom, two others also have served jail time for later alcohol infractions.
Cheryl Stesney would not let her daughter comment. Martone, she said, "let his anger get out of control. He was just so hurt and embarrassed by that Web site."
Meerschaert's mother, Polly, agreed. "I do feel this is all about vengeance. I won't say my daughter didn't make a mistake. But the minute it became personal, the judge should've removed himself," she said.
"Judge Martone's a fair man," Senopole's father, Tom, said outside the courtroom last week. "She was just in the wrong crowd, wrong time, wrong place."
They sure like to drink in Michigan. Nothing else to do during the winter time other than drink alcohol and play that stupid game Euchre
chugging shots of Jagermeister liqueur...and the way you can ascertain what they were really drinking from website photos is .... ???
I try to remember to do that as well, though I do sometimes forget. In a typical thread, FReepers have covered the salient points in the first 20 posts, often the first 5 or 10.
Not at all...the condition of the probation was that they NOT DRINK. If the web site had only been obscene messages to the judge, nothing could/would have been done. BUT they were stupid (again) and displayed evidence for all to see that they had disobeyed the conditions for probation by drinking!
They deserved to have their probation revoked.
That would have been an appropriate question for a defense attorney to pose, but apparently the lush in question admitted that the photos were genuine and that she had a problem.
She might as well have stuck the photos on a light pole outside the courthouse, since the internet is a public place. If she had kept it to herself and among friends, this never would have come up.
Because they were also violating the terms of a sentence he imposed.
With parents like this no wonder you got kids like this
Tell them to become judges so they can do it on a daily basis.
Or lawyers. I've seen lawyers who should have been jailed for "dissing" the judge.
They got nothing..Every defendant talks about the judge in their cases..Nobody said they were smart
America's future leaders ain't too bright....
These pathetic ding-bat mothers should be eternally grateful that this judge may have saved their daughters from an early grave. I'm sure they didn't walk to these binges and were driving drunk. They were sitting ducks for rape or other violence when they were drunk. Shame on parents who don't control their children and then criticize the justice system that finally has to do it for them.
These are the sorts of things that happen in a nanny state where 18 year olds adults can vote, drive motor vehicles, own a firearms, and risk their lives for us as soldiers, police officers, and firefighters, but can't walk into a bar and legally buy a drink. If you want people to act like adults, then start treating them like adults. Sure, young adults also got drunk when the drinking age was 18, but more likely, they were drinking in situations where they could observe the behavior of more responsible adults and where there were older, more experienced drinkers to keep things under control. But when the law forces adults to drink illegally behind closed doors, the situation is ripe for abuse.
Michigan State University is a good place for her. She'll fit right in.
She is an idiot. There's no doubt about that. I'm not going to waste time worrying about her "rights". I was just wondering how a picture --- though worth a thousand words --- can also be worth a sip or a sniff.
She volunteered evidence. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that she was going to some lengths to convince people that she was violating her probation. The judge simply took them as she intended them to be taken. She could have still denied they were real, and probably gotten off with contempt, but she didn't deny it.
Well said. I feel it is somewhat hypocritical telling young people we'll treat them like adults when they act like adults... and then deny them adult privelages. I don't mean to infer that it's "adult like" or mature to drink, but I don't believe it's right to be selective.
If we can draft and send an 18 year old to war... to possibly die in defense of our Nation, and kill with our permission, then that person should be allowed to have a beer.
That, and the ever and eternal sobbing of those that assume the law was for "those other guys", as they are being taken to the gallows. ;)
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