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In Redding California, a now seventeen-year-old girl has been charged with the involuntary manslaughter of a friend that died of alcohol poisoning in December of 2008. She is also being charged with providing alcohol to a minor and providing alcohol to a minor that resulted in great bodily injury/death.

Shelby Lyn Allen, age 17, and another friend, age 14, went to the unnamed 16 year old defendants house. After the parents went to sleep, the girls played a drinking game with vodka. Shelby drank 16-17 shots while text messaging other friends about how much she was drinking.  The 14-year old girl apparently vomited for a period of time, passed out, and was helped to bed. Meanwhile, Shelby became ill  and was placed by the commode. The defendant sent a text message to one of Shelby’s friends that had previously helped her through a binge drinking episode, but the defendant stopped asking for his help after he said that he would have to tell his parents where and why he was coming to her house. The defendant then went to bed. The next morning Shelby was found dead… still propped up against the commode. The coroner found that Shelby’s blood alcohol level was 0.33%.

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It is alleged that the defendant, 16 at the time, provided Shelby with the alcohol. Although the media is reporting that the parents of the defendant frequently allowed their daughter to drink alcohol to learn moderation, authorities have not brought charges against the parents, since they reportedly told the girls there was to be no drinking on this particular night.

During the trial, District Attorney Eric Anderson argued that the defendant did not reach out to her parents, other adults, or friends that Shelby was in a “perilous predicament.” Anderson makes a rather simple argument that the defendants parents obviously allowed drinking; so, all she needed to do was wake her parents up and alert them that Shelby was ill. The defense argued that the defendant did not know that her friend was in danger and did not know the symptoms of alcohol poisoning. The judge is scheduled to make a ruling late next week.

My Opinion:

There are laws in place that prohibit underage drinking for a reason. These children often do not understand the implications to themselves when it comes to drinking. Obviously, Shelby didn’t understand the implications or she wouldn’t have drank to the point of alcohol poisoning. So, if teens don’t understand the implications to themselves, how are they supposed to understand the implications for someone else drinking alcohol?

How many teenagers could tell the difference between drinking too much, vomiting, passing out, and waking up with a hangover vs. the signs and symptoms of alcohol poisoning?

How do you charge a 16 year old underage girl with giving another 17 year old underage girl alcohol? 

Prosecuting this teenage girl is essentially sending the message to other teens that you should be responsible enough to know and report the signs of someone that has drank to the point they might have alcohol poising, but there isn’t any personal responsibility to know that if you yourself choose to drink too much, you might get alcohol poisoning.

Shelby sadly opted to drink too much. It would have been life saving if her friends would have recognized that she had alcohol poisoning and needed medical attention. However, the defendant not recognizing and reporting Shelby’s condition isn’t what actually killed Shelby. Shelby choosing to drink excessively is what killed her. Her parents and the community are obviously looking for someone to blame instead of using Shelby’s decision to drink too much as a message that underage drinking is dangerous and one can not depend on others around them to always be wiser than they are.