Boston Criminal Defense Blog

In a rather odd incident recently out of Massachusetts, a man allegedly broke into a home and then was arrested by the police while he was apparently trying to clean the place up.

Reports indicate that the man, who is 33 years old, entered the residence through a door that had been left unlocked. He removed his shoes and cleaned out the litter box for the homeowner's cat. He then started cleaning everything else inside.

You see it all the time on television: Someone gets arrested and told that they can have only one phone call. They may even demand it, saying it's a basic right. The police resentfully allow them that call, as if this right is somewhere in the Constitution -- even though it was drafted before phones were invented.

So, do you just get one call? Or is this a myth?

In order to arrest someone on suspicion of drunk driving, police must have probable cause. This means that they can't just have a hunch that you are intoxicated. They must gather sufficient evidence to arrest you.

Since roadside breath tests are highly unreliable, authorities needed to create some other method to determine impairment. This is when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted some research and came up with a three-part test back in the 1980s. Police officers still use those tests today.

As a parent, you know that underage drinking happens. Movies about high school and college tend to glamorize it. However, does it happen as much as these fictionalized accounts imply? To understand it, here are three facts you need to know:

• In every state in the country, the legal drinking age is 21 years old. No one can legally buy or consume alcohol under that age.
• Even so, 11 percent of the alcohol that people drink in the United States gets consumed by people who are from 12 to 20 years old. That figure shows that simply making something illegal does not put an end to it.
• About 90 percent of the drinks consumed by people in that 12-to-20 age bracket are consumed as part of America's binge drinking culture. This is when people drink excessively and with the goal of getting intoxicated. In short, most teens are drinking heavily when they drink illegally, rather than sticking to the recommended one or two drinks a day.

Underage drinking is definitely a problem in the United States, and many parents are unaware that their children are involved in it. Teens work very hard to hide this from their parents. While the movies may exaggerate the drinking culture and turn it into something it is not, the reality is not always as drastically different as you may hope. If your teen is drinking at all, odds are that he or she is binge drinking.