Ok, so I'll start off the first of my circumstantial series of why I was on or am currently on Texas probation. I hope that maybe someone will find all of this information helpful in some way or another.
The first time I actually got sentenced to probation in Texas was for a charge called Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. Basically, it means that in some way, shape or fashion, I provided someone under the age of 18, or in this case 21 the means to drink alcohol. I guess it would be the same as buying a 15 year-old a pack of cigarettes.
I did buy alcohol for minors that day. I was 24, and my girlfriend at the time was 19, I think. So, right out of the gate, that's a class B misdemeanor. Aside from that, there were a bunch of younger people at our house. We were having a huge party, and about 50 or 60 people showed up, and lots of people brought friends that were underage, etc. Well, I suppose everything would have been fine, but someone got into a fight, and cops were called, so by the time they responded, most people had left except for me, my girlfriend, and a couple of other friends. Since my name was on the lease of the home, I got the Contributing charge.
I got probation for a year, but I asked the DA if he would please lower it, because I was trying to go back to Japan, which I was. He knocked it down to 9 months for me, and I completed it just fine. I can't remember how much the fine was, but I had around 50 hours of community service to do, which I procrastinated on and finally knocked out.
Basically what I got from this fiasco was that, if you want to have a party, you had better be checking IDs at the door, because if someone comes in that's underage and there's alcohol all over the place, you could catch a case. In Texas, if you try and have yourself a party in a neighborhood, you're probably going to get the cops called on you anyway for being loud. This basically means that if you don't have the money to go and rent a spot away from everything, or you don't have any land (no neighbors), then you probably shouldn't have a big party, or else you're probably going to end up on probation.
The first time I actually got sentenced to probation in Texas was for a charge called Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. Basically, it means that in some way, shape or fashion, I provided someone under the age of 18, or in this case 21 the means to drink alcohol. I guess it would be the same as buying a 15 year-old a pack of cigarettes.
I did buy alcohol for minors that day. I was 24, and my girlfriend at the time was 19, I think. So, right out of the gate, that's a class B misdemeanor. Aside from that, there were a bunch of younger people at our house. We were having a huge party, and about 50 or 60 people showed up, and lots of people brought friends that were underage, etc. Well, I suppose everything would have been fine, but someone got into a fight, and cops were called, so by the time they responded, most people had left except for me, my girlfriend, and a couple of other friends. Since my name was on the lease of the home, I got the Contributing charge.
I got probation for a year, but I asked the DA if he would please lower it, because I was trying to go back to Japan, which I was. He knocked it down to 9 months for me, and I completed it just fine. I can't remember how much the fine was, but I had around 50 hours of community service to do, which I procrastinated on and finally knocked out.
Basically what I got from this fiasco was that, if you want to have a party, you had better be checking IDs at the door, because if someone comes in that's underage and there's alcohol all over the place, you could catch a case. In Texas, if you try and have yourself a party in a neighborhood, you're probably going to get the cops called on you anyway for being loud. This basically means that if you don't have the money to go and rent a spot away from everything, or you don't have any land (no neighbors), then you probably shouldn't have a big party, or else you're probably going to end up on probation.
