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Judge orders defendants to call their parents

One of the first things Brighton District Court Judge David Donnelly asked the two college students up on graffiti charges this morning was whether their parents knew.

The pair, arrested early Saturday at a freshly tagged building near Boston University, said they did not.

"Why didn't you call your parents?" Donnelly asked the two, both 19 and both from the San Francisco area. They told him they were hoping to handle the matter on their own and to get the case resolved because, they said, they didn't do it - it was the woman they were with who was writing on the wall.

Donnelly didn't want to hear it. First he appointed two attorneys to represent them. Then, even though it was 7:30 a.m. on the West Coast at the time, he ordered the two to go into the hallway and inform their parents: "Let them know you've been arrested and that you're before the court," he said.

Not-guilty pleas were entered on their behalf.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

is that legal?

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I guess it was one of those cute things you see judges on TV do, but seems like the wrong message to send to people who are actually adults at 19. What exactly is the moral of this judge's little performance?

Whit

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So it they're adults, I assume they're paying for their own education.

Right?

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So, if someone is on welfare or unemployment, they're not adults?

Not everyone pays their way in life all the times. However, everyone reaches the age of 18 at some point.

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"everyone reaches the age of 18 at some point"

Why don't you tell that to Little JonBenet ?

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Ya know, when our daughter says stuff like that, we tell her we better start saving up so she can go to Harvard Law School because she'll find an argument in anything. But she's 11.

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I didn't say they'd make it 18 years fully alive.

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My point is, that if they are adults, the judge should do whatever he is going to do to them. Why their parents need to get involved is not clear. I don't know if their parents are paying for their schooling or not.

Whit

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If you go into debt to go to college, it isn't your parents who are responsible for that debt. In any case, it doesn't matter what money or insurance or anything parents contribute - a 19 year old is legally an adult. Period. Parents may volunteer to help, but they are not responsible for them. Period.

I suppose my MIL has custody of my children because she volunteered to baby sit them now and again? By your logic, that would be the case.

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you sound like the crazy parents who try to call colleges and get their kid's grades. Those are the same parents that call up companies after interviews when their kids aren't hired. And then I get to hear the stories about how my generation is messed up when it's really some parents who are paying for their kid's lives and therefore feel they deserve to know all the details to an insane degree.

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They both looked like they were about 12.

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but we're assuming facts not entered into evidence, at least here. Where does it say they were college students, and at what college? BPD says only that they were caught near a BU building.

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True, it's possible they are not college students. However, BPD said they were from "Boston," but they both said in court this morning they were from the San Francisco area. In my experience (i.e., blogging about wild parties on Mission Hill and in Allston) that usually means they are, in fact, out-of-town college students going to school in Boston.

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Based on their facebook pages (how many other Julian Moores are friends with a Matthew Gibbs and both have the same college and graduation year?), they're 2013 Berklee students. Elizabeth McMahon would seem to be a 2013 BU student, however.

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If they're under 18, yes.

If they're 18 or over, it constitutes "forced speech" which violates the 1st amendement protections of freedom of speech, so, no.

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I've heard of people being sentenced to do things like buy apology advertisements in local newspapers, or stand around the front door of a department store wearing a sign that says "I Am A Shoplifter". That sounds like "forced speech" to me, but perhaps the difference is that these are punishments AFTER conviction, not before a trial.

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I get tired of this creeping infantalization. The problem isn't that mommy and daddy aren't living with them at their age. The problem is that they presumably are unable to be responsible for themselves. Having them call their parents simply perpetuates this. I think they should be encouraged to try to handle it on their own. That's how you grow up and take responsibility for yourself and the consequences of your behavior.

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Maybe they just didn't get the service they were looking for inside...

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Building is clearly a vortex of weird news.

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...timing.

I was 1.5 hours late, and a dollar short. You beat me to the dominatrix scoop. ;)

I just hadn't gotten through all of the UHub feed yet before commenting on the A-B Tab blotter.

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Given the circumstances for which the two 19 year olds were arrested, I'm not so sure whether or not making the two of them call their parents would've been the best way to solve things, but, if they were vandalizing and defacing property and they got caught, they deserved to get arrested, in any case. At 19, they're old enough to realize that getting arrested as adults not only earns them a record that follows them for the rest of their lives, but that it could jeopardize their chances of being able to finish their education and therefore obtain skills and/or meaningful employment later in life.

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