On labor Day 2004 my sixteen year old niece was ticketed for DUI and driving without a license.

Some cousins of mine have a house trailer, in the boonies of Michigan, that they call their 'summer house'. In the winter they use it as a base for their snowmobiling on the surrounding farmlands. In the summer they go there to shoot guns and set off fire works. They don't hunt, they just shoot at beer cans. To get the empty beer cans they have to drink the beer. By the time the have enough empty cans, they're not in much condition for marksmanship. But I digress.

On labor Day 2004 they had parked a car under the one big shadetree on the property and my niece was sitting in the car listening to the radio and drinking a beer.

A county cop was attracted by the gunfire, but decided that since they were shooting on private property and no one had complained, there was no problem.

As he was leaving he stopped by the car under the shade tree and told my niece that since the key was in the ignition (in the accessory position) he was giving her a ticket for DUI (no breathalizer, he just decided and wrote a ticket). She had no drivers license, so he gave her another ticket for 'operating a motor vehicle without a license'.

It has always been my understanding that a ticket for DUI equaled an arrest. But no arrest, no bond, nothing! He just wrote the tickets and left.

After several court appearances and continuances, finally, last week, the judge dismissed all charges.

Now the strange part. I mentioned that my niece was sixteen. Never, in four court appearances, never was anything mentiond about underaged drinking! No one was charged with giving beer to a minor!