By: Natalie Zur

Sentry Staff Reporter 

One would expect that any individual who kills four people, even accidentally, would be tried for the crime in a court of law – and punished when found guilty. This is the way the justice system in the United States works, allowing citizens accused of a crime access to legal representation and a fair trial.  However, a recent ruling made by a state court in a drunk driving accident has been considered to be less than fair in many people’s eyes.

Ethan Couch, a 16 year old from Texas, killed four people in a drunk driving accident on June 5th.  In early December, he was tried with four counts of intoxicated manslaughter.  Couch was driving 60 to 70 mph in a 40 mph zone.  He had a blood alcohol content level of 0.24, three times the legal amount for drivers in Texas, and Valium in his system according to toxicology reports.

Intoxicated manslaughter is a second-degree felony in Texas and usually results in 2 to 20 years in prison.  However, Couch was given a punishment that was baffling.  Instead of a harsh punishment for a crime that killed four individuals, he was sentenced to ten years of probation.  Couch was able to return to his couch with the addition of community service hours and required therapy.  And all this leniency because his defense was that he suffered from a condition called “affluenza.”

Affluenza means that growing up wealthy prevents children from understanding the link between their actions and the impact.  Couch was able to get a psychologist to testify to this condition as well, arguing that the 16 year old was a product of a lifestyle where wealth brought privilege but did not bring the consequences for his bad behavior.  A piece of evidence that was brought into court to support this claim was an incident that occurred a year prior.  Couch was found in a car, intoxicated, with an undressed, passed out 14 year old girl.  He received no punishment from parents or law enforcement for this deed.

The judge that made this decision to hand out probation instead of jail time did not seem to take a look at the larger picture.  Ruling that a 16 year old boy who killed four other people should have a private home in California to receive one-on-one therapy as a punishment is symbolic of the failings of a justice system as a whole.  It sets a terrible precedent for the generations to come by furthering the notion that the wealthy are able to commit crimes and get away unscathed, while the rest of the citizens would have received the harsh punishment they deserved.

Our country’s justice system is based on equality, however this ruling makes a mockery of the idea of equal standing before the law.  If the individual that killed the four people while under the influence was anyone else less fortunate yet under the same circumstances, the outcome would have been much different.  And in the end, the judge did not cure the 16 year old from his case of “affluenza,” because by letting him off on such a light sentence, Couch has still not effectively learned his lesson.

While there are factors that should be considered in a court’s ruling, such as mental illness, age, and previous criminal activity, setting a precedent of economic status correlating with different punishments shows the clear imbalance in today’s justice system, and how it begs for reform.

Featured Image Courtesy of slate.com