So far, Taryn had been able to avoid anyone else finding out about her arrest for Driving Under the Influence.

The judge had let her go on her own recognizance. Alexis had convinced him that, as a high school senior, Taryn would prefer to graduate rather than flee the jurisdiction over a DUI charge. She didn't have a job or money. Her mother was just starting to go through a divorce.

The judge had asked Taryn whether she would show up for court. "If you don't, the police will have a bench warrant for your arrest, and could show up at your house or at school with it. This isn't going to go away just because you don't show up. In fact, it will get worse if you don't show up."

"I understand," Taryn said.

So, figuring that the warning and the fact that Alexis Davis represented her would work together to make sure she would show up, the judge had let Taryn go.

Taryn ran out to get the mail every day. Fortunately, she could get it before her mother returned from work. This way, when the notice of the court date came, Taryn would get a hold of it before her mother would. Taryn wasn't sure her mother would be really upset at her over this incident. She just felt like it was something her mother didn't really need to deal with just now.

Alexis saw Duane in the courthouse again and asked him to go to lunch. "Let me tell you about this case," she said.

"That's a good one," Duane said, after Alexis had described Taryn's case. "What a story!"

"I went back to review the defenses to crime," Alexis said. "And lo and behold. Remember, from law school, the necessity defense?"

"A little. Is this a public or a private necessity?"

"You know, I could see a little public. If the train hit the car, it would have been damaged. Stopped. Someone could have gotten hurt."

"Your drunk teen is a heroine!"

"Could be. Yes, the more I think about it. She saved the public from an inconvenience to a train."

"She may even have saved someone's life," Duane said.

"Basically, the necessity defense is this:" Alexis said, "where someone must decide, in an emergency situation, to commit what is otherwise a crime, to avoid imminent public or private injury, which was not the result of defendant's conduct. So naturally the D.A. will say something like, it was her fault the car was on the tracks."

"But is it her fault that the car stalled there?"

"Maybe," said Alexis. "But it wasn't intentional on her part."

"Yes, that should come into play, I think," said Duane. "It should make a difference whether it is something the defendant intentionally did versus something that just happened."

"Then we have the balancing test," Alexis said, "That the desirability and urgency of avoiding such injury clearly outweighs the desirability of avoiding the injury sought to be prevented by the statute defining the offense in issue. So that means the desirability and urgency of the train not hitting an empty car outweighs the desirability of avoiding drunk driving."

"Drunk driving can get someone killed."

"But once that actually happens, the offense isn't just drunk driving, but vehicular homicide or assault."

"Oh, I see. You've got a point. Just drunk driving by itself is the offense committed. And maybe you can commit that offense to avoid the damage. And you've got the fact she did stop. So that was all the driving she was going to do."

"Yes, so we're talking just drunk driving where no one gets hurt. And someone could have gotten hurt, maybe, someone on the train, or like you said, someone on the street from flying debris. I think I would have done the same thing. No, I wouldn't have. I'd have thought I was going to get hit by the train."

"A few seconds avoids a tragedy."

"Tell me about it. Kids these days!"

"You're about to find out."

"Yes, I am. Well, this child of mine is not going to drive anywhere!"

"Oh, yes this child will, at age sixteen, want to drive like all the rest of them. And like you and I."

"Ah, well, I've got a long time yet before I have to think about it. Maybe by then there will be no such thing as cars."

Duane laughed. "Just transporters."

"Yeah, something like Star Wars. Or Star Trek. Like that."

Mary Ellen Delaney was a reporter for the Port Charles Gazette. She went to the police station. Sometimes, she found, Detective Taggart was willing to comment on a thing or two.

"Oh, here's the press," he said when he saw her, "who are you after today?"

"Who are you after?" she asked him. "That's the question."

"Nothing big. It's a slow week for crime."

"That's good, actually."

"The biggest bit this week is the high school bimbo who drove her car off the train tracks."

"That doesn't sound like a problem, even."

"She got arrested for drunk driving. I thought that was rich. She only moved the stalled car off the tracks. But when an officer came along, he noticed she was drunk. She admitted it right out, but said she was only moving the car off the tracks."

"How did the car get onto the tracks? She must have been driving then."

"It was a friend of hers, who had gone to get help when the car stalled."

"Oh, I see. She doesn't sound like a menace to society."

Taggart laughed. "She's not a menace to society. More like an irritant to society."