The Daily Tar Heel recently reported on several student underage drinking cases that were recently dismissed by the court for alleged constitutional violations.
Alcohol abuse is our greatest collegiate problem, and universities are under intense pressure to reverse this destructive behavior. An addictive drug, alcohol kills more teens than all other drugs combined, with collegiate deaths and poisonings at record levels.
Alcohol-related damage to the brain, heart, liver, lungs, circulatory system, genetic makeup, pancreas and other serious teen health issues are well-documented. Alcohol contributes to many suicides. High-risk, even criminal, behaviors are associated with teen drinking. And alcohol fuels the majority of sexual assaults on women.
Reaping the fruits of our complacency, for the first time the majority of the nation’s alcoholics are young people, teens to age 26. Alcohol misuse jeopardizes personal health and future career.
The local Alcohol Law Enforcement Response Team, a combined enforcement effort involving the Chapel Hill and Carrboro police departments, was created to focus on this community problem.
In both underage drinking cases the DTH mentioned, the judge’s decision dealt only with the investigative conduct of the officers, without reaching the personal conduct of students charged. Most accepted personal responsibility.
We expect police to make instantaneous decisions in situations confronting them. Often that defining line for constitutional action is unclear for officer, lawyer and judge. Previously, cases involving virtually identical facts have been found to pass constitutional muster.
There is rarely a clear or solitary answer. Diversity of opinion on constitutional issues is common, and one ruling is rarely the final word. But officers don’t have the intellectual leisure of casual reflective thinking available to lawyers and judges.
The DTH reports that student underage drinking cases have increased, implying ALERT responsibility. No doubt ALERT charges have added to court business.
But reflecting a community focus on underage drinking, charges have increased steadily for five years, beginning long before creation of ALERT.
The DTH, however, is dead wrong in connecting the increase in underage drinking cases to an increase in constitutional violations, or in implying that cases have now decreased because of those violations.
As a free society, we have a responsibility to protect individual liberties, while, as responsible citizens, we have a simultaneous obligation to comply with the law. As we expect legal behavior by officers, we, likewise, expect it of students. Neither are above the law.
Underage drinking is a serious problem locally. UNC opened its academic year with the alcohol-fueled death of Courtland Smith, but he is only one of the many student victims of abusive drinking. ALERT is a response to concerns expressed by every sector of our community, including UNC.
Standing alone, courts are not the solution to this problem, but with all other community and university efforts failing to reverse this destructive trend, it is another tool a community must utilize to responsibly confront this threat.
Ronald Bogle is a retired superior court judge from Chapel Hill. Contact Ronald at robojudge@earthlink.net.
