Fighting Underage Consumption When No Test Was Given

Attorney Answer

You have this backwards, and the correction is in your favor: you do not have to prove you weren't drinking. The State has to prove you were, beyond a reasonable doubt — and without any chemical test, it has to do it on an officer's observations alone.

That said, be clear-eyed. The absence of a breath or blood test is an argument, not an automatic dismissal. A fact-finder is allowed to convict on an officer's testimony about odor, appearance, behavior, and anything you said. So the goal is not to prove a negative; it is to attack the sufficiency and reliability of what the officer will say.

The governing law — and read your citation carefully. Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-113 makes it unlawful for a person under 21 to purchase, possess, transport, or consume alcoholic beverages, wine, or beer, subject to narrow exceptions (such as handling in the course of employment for those 18 or older). For beer specifically, the parallel prohibition and its Class A misdemeanor penalty are at Tenn. Code Ann. § 57-5-301.

Notice that the statute reaches possession and transporting, not just consumption. This matters more than anything else in your case. You are focused on whether you drank — but if the citation charges possession, the State does not have to prove you drank at all. Find out which conduct is actually alleged before you build a defense around the wrong element.

What you can do

1. Read the citation or charging document and identify the exact charge: consumption, possession, or transporting. If you cannot tell, ask the clerk for the charging instrument. 2. Enter a not-guilty plea and request discovery: the officer's report, any body-camera or in-car video, and any statement attributed to you. 3. Do not write out your own account of what happened. Notes you create yourself are not protected by attorney-client privilege, can be seized or subpoenaed, and can be used to impeach you if your testimony later differs. Instead preserve the records that already exist — texts, call logs, emails, receipts, photos and location history — along with the names and contact details of any witnesses, and give your account to your attorney verbally. 4. Get the names and phone numbers of everyone who was with you, and ask each of them to write down their own account now. Memories of a routine night go stale within weeks. 5. Preserve receipts, card statements, and timestamped photos or videos that show what you actually had. 6. Stop talking about it. Do not post about the case, and do not try to explain yourself to the officer or the prosecutor without a lawyer present. Explanations become statements, and statements become evidence. 7. Ask a lawyer whether the court where your case is set has a diversion or dismissal-on-conditions program for a first-time underage offense, and whether a conviction would carry a driver-licence consequence — for underage alcohol charges it often does, and that is worth knowing before you decide how to resolve the case.