so tragic punishing a 16 yr. old boy is not
the answer in most cases. community service in
an emergency room might do more goood.

The person who sold the liquor should go to jail for the rest of his natural life. Judge J. have at him! The liquor store must lose its license. The children who bought the liquor should lose their driving rights for 25 years, with monitored home confinement; a better sentence might be to be denied a driving license for life. Parents, shame on you! Moved from RI in 1977, and can state that the problem is not confined to Rhode Island County. Live n Texas county that has the highest rate of DWI death in the country. Shame on Texas, too.

Punishing a 16 year old boy for drinking and driving, when not only is under age drinking ILLEGAL, but DRINKING AND DRIVING is neither smart nor legal, despite the fact that similar deaths have occured due to underage alcohol in the recent past in the same town, is not the answer? "Community service" wherever is takes place would just reinforce the notion that teenagers have-that they can do whatever they want without consequence. Let's keep in mind that he took another life.

THis is to Margaret You are wrong about them not being punish they should be and then yes then the community service.Mark Woods is serving some time in the ACI for buying MY son Darien a bottle of Captain Morgan, that was his last bottle he will ever drink because he died March 23,2007 he was only 14 now i dont have my son or do my other children have their brother.We need to get tough with these teens and stop by just giving them a smack on the hand, thats not enough anymore.

The 'oh trying his as an adult would be too harsh' attitude on this forum is sickening and is EXACTLY why these kids are literally getting away with murder.

I'll go one better. No trial at ALL for this 16 year old kid. But the father of the boy he killed gets 20 minutes locked in a room with him.

Too harsh? That is the problem with society today, we want to give everyone a slap on the wrist for whatever they do wrong instead of doling out punishments that are harsh enough to send a message. These kids think they can get away with anyhing BECAUSE they are teenagers and all will disappear when they turn 21. Time to send a message loud and clear that will get through to them that being a teenager does not give them the right to do whatever they please and get away with it. They need to be learn that THEY are responsible for their actions and that consequences are attached when they do something wrong.

We also need to punish the adults that allow/enable this behavior as harshly as possible to get the message across to them, too, that this will not be tolerated any more. There have been too many alcohol related young deaths.

He is not an adult - going to jail will only ensure that he will not have the chance to be a valuable and contributing citizen. There should be a standard - home confinement through college and loss of drivers license until after college and only if he attains a full time job. Community service as well.

Sure. Make him stay home with his enabler mommy and daddy for the next few years. THAT'S punishment. That'll teach him the valuable lesson that being a white kid from a good neighborhood means never having to do time for KILLING SOMEONE.

A friend of mine has a boy playing on a winter sports team in Barrington--go figure--the first game, a parent was handing out the roster of the team-there were no numbers to identify the plaayers, but there is no Mistaken when the "Parent Parties" are--they were all listed-an image thing I guess-and I am sure NO booze will be at these parties---this is where it all begins--Parents who don't want to grow up