My colleague Ron Bailey notes that Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos lost his bid for reelection this week. Camblos prosecuted the couple who threw a supervised party for their son’s 16th birthday. While the couple did allow the kids to drink alcohol, they ensured that no one could leave the house. When police arrived, about half the kids had consumed no alcohol at all, and the other half where well below .08. Camblos tried to put the couple in prison for more than a decade. They ended up getting 8 years, later reduced to 27 months, which they’re now serving.

I don’t think the couple should have been let off. I don’t think you should be allowed to serve other peoples’ kids alcohol without their permission, even if I do think the drink ages is silly, and the zero tolerance method of enforcing it even sillier. But the couple should have been fined. Prison is absurd.

The Virginia case was one of the reason why I wrote a Washington Post op-ed on the topic back in 2005.

More prosecutors need to be tossed out of office for making bad decisions about what cases to pursue.

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