Are you kidding me? Jail for giving alcohol to teenagers to consume in her house? While she may have shown poor judgement in saying "sleep it off," this is simply rediculous! Either there is a lot more to this story than is reported, or there are loons running the system in Beverly.

She gave someone else's daughter so much alcohol the girl couldnt even see. Then told her to go to sleep. It is only because of sheer luck that the girl is alive. If that were my daughter, I'd want Clark to do jail time too. Kudos to the judge for sending a strong message that there are consequences for endangering other people's children by intentional, illegal actions.

Her bottom feeding lawyer and parents thought the sentence was too harsh? Nobody died, no harm no foul I guess is their take. Some people think no one should be accountable in todays society. Just please to see the system is taking a stand.

You just don't get it do you?

two wrongs don't make one right

They should take her kids away from her, as part of her sentence. She is an unfit parent. Make her serve the full sentence. Enough of these parents and kids drinking underage. They end up being the dregs of society that we end up paying for. Alcohol is the biggest drug around a nice surtax of %50 paid to the state would be appropriate for the destruction it has done and will cause to America.

Also--Thank You Beverly Police, DA Blodgetts' office and Judge Brennan for doing the right thing for US.

No, but one wrong and one right even the score.

The alcohol is one problem. Another problem is undermining parents who allowed their kids to go to a party that was to be supervised by Ms. Clark. They weren't her kids, but they could have been mine. She deserves jail for *encouraging* other people's kids to flout the law.

To elaborate, there is nothing right about making a case out of a mother's error of judgment just the law okay so. Where were all the moralists when sexual abuses went rapid in the Church? When the cover-up was worse than the crime. True, alcohol abuse can have serious repercussions. This is not to minimize it; however, the motive could have been to prevent teens going off to the woods, or driving drunk. One should and ought to be outraged in cases like Phoebe Prince. Where was the outrage then? In the black-and-white society, gray means nothing. And how many of you moralists have not punk once or twice in your lifetime? No one wants to impute the motive of the persecutors. By the same token, most readers here, myself included, don't know this mother, but this smell of a case of making an example of her. While there are worst crimes and worse tragedies in which nothing was done, a mother is thrown into jail for a bad judgment gone too far? What'd happen to the children of this mother? Where is your compassion?

This jail sentence is excessive and over the top. Many, many drivers are still driving motor vehicles after accumulating mutiple charges of DUIs and they are still driving. Where are the jail sentences for those people? This sentence is out of line for this situation. There ought to be an appeal of this sentence and a psychiatric evaluation. Is this Salem judge a misogynist?

I could buy your position if it was her own kids, but she's involving other people's kids, possibly encouraging them to abandon the things they've learned from their own parents. That is the issue. She encouraging kids to break the law that might not have done so otherwise. Whatever her motives, she was promoting alcohol use by underage kids -- and not just a little underage, but 16 for God's sake.

You nailed it by saying *possibly*. This article is too sketchy to tell except that it states prom season is upon us and thus the case. More importantly, drinking is a social event (one'd worry *even* more for solitary drinking) Again, there is no details to say she was actively corrupting minor in the most despicable way. Now if other parents came out on the records saying so, then I'd shut up. But neither you nor I know the details except what is stated in the article When I was young (long time ago,) I used to volunteer for a hotline, taboo and stigma damage more than youthful indiscretion Again, I am not here to defend, much less to condone, the error 0f judgment. However, as another respondent has pointed out, people with multiple DUIs are still running free, and people keep saying how the strain of state budget is causing backlogs, should people hang someone out to dry because it is a popular sport? I want to emphasis, this doesn't mean she should get a free pass; but there are many ways to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation like (1) house arrest; (2) community service; (3) lengthy probation etc. But this is the moral equivalence of throwing someone in jail because s/he is an drug addict or being stupid