On June 15, 2013, 16-year-old Ethan Couch was driving his pickup truck nearly 70 miles-per-hour in a 40 MPH zone. He was drunk, with a blood alcohol content of 0.24, or nearly three times the legal limit for an adult. He killed four people, including a pastor and a mother with her daughter, and injured nine others.
His court-ordered punishment: 10 years probation and no jail time, because Couch is the horrifying end result of “affluenza.” If it sounds like a disease, well, it kind of is: “affluenza” basically means poor rich kids with their rich parents.
Lawyers for Couch, 16, had argued that the teen’s parents should share part of the blame for the crash because they never set limits for the boy and gave him everything he wanted.
According to CNN affiliate WFAA, a psychologist called by the defense described Couch as a product of “affluenza.” He reportedly testified that the teen’s family felt wealth bought privilege, and that Couch’s life could be turned around with one to two years of treatment and no contact with his parents. (Via)
If I had been that judge, I would have immediately decided Couch should be in jail for looking like the unholy baby of Joffrey and Michael Cera. That’s probably why I’m not a judge.
Anyway, Couch will be sent to a “small, private home in California which offers intensive one-on-one therapy,” which should do wonders for a kid who wasn’t punished by his parents when “police ticketed the then-15-year-old when he was found in a parked pickup with a passed out, undressed, 14-year-old girl.”
I take back what I said: he’s Joffrey by way of This Is the End Michael Cera.
(Via CNN)
