Posted on 12/18/2015 7:58:49 AM PST by HomerBohn
If you haven't heard about this case, you might be surprised this is even a thing that exists. If anything, this proves just how low into the depths of Hell society has sunk.
First, the backstory.
Back in June 2013, 16-year-old North Texas teen Ethan Couch, whose parents are worth 15 million dollars, decided it would be real cool to steal two cases of beer from a Walmart, then drive drunk at 70 MPH in a 40 MPH zone with seven people in his dad's Ford F-350 pickup while under the influence of not just alcohol, but Valium.
Couch's blood-alcohol content was 0.24 at the time, three times over the legal limit in Texas.
At nearly three times the legal alcohol limit, Couch sped nearly twice the speed limit down a dark, rural road in the truck equivalent of a clown car (in which no one was wearing a seat belt, of course). Inevitably he came upon a patch of road where 24-year-old Breanna Mitchell's SUV had broken down. Three others, a woman and her daughter who lived nearby and a passing youth minister, had all stopped to help Mitchell with her car.
You can see what kind of horrible nightmare this story is headed into.
Couch swerved off the road at just this moment, plowing into the minister's car which then hit another oncoming car. The truck flipped over, slamming into a tree. Mitchell and the three who stopped to help her were all killed. Eleven more were injured. One with severe brain damage was left paralyzed.
The whole thing is a sick comedy of deadly errors, but here's where this story actually manages to get worse.
Prosecutors attempted to get 20 years for Couch. Twenty years for the four lives he took and all the others he irrevocably damaged forever. And you know what Couch ended up with?
Ten years' probation. Probation. That's it.
Now, do you want to hear why?
Experts argued in court that he suffered from "Affluenza".
"Affluenza" -- a term that combines influenza with affluence, and is defined as "an inability to understand the consequences of one's actions because of financial privilege."
Put another way, because Mr. Couch had access to daddy's money and was coddled all his life, raised as a spoiled brat who could apparently do whatever he wanted whenever he felt like it with no regard for anyone else, grew up so disconnected from reality because of his "privilege" that he could not comprehend how his behavior might effect others.
This is what his trial experts and lawyers argued in his defense... argued and won.
What he needed, his lawyers claimed, was rehabilitation, not prison.
Let's see how that rehab is going. Here's a video that reportedly shows Mr. Couch just a few weeks ago:
(Watch the video at link)
Here in 2015, I'm going with both.
You really don't want to make justice mad.
Affluenza makes justice mad enough to come looking for ya.
If there is bribery, I'm going to guess that some smart person made sure it would never show up on any analysis. There may be bearer bonds somewhere. Or it may be that some pretty girl (or boy) took a very active interest in the judge over the course of the trial.
When he wears it out, I'll buy him another one. They're cheap.
It's the same principle seen in those companies whose management coddles "special pets" beyond normal human tolerance, eventually causing a union drive.
Mr. niteowl77
I posted pics on another thread, it was a horrific crash.
How did he get out of the country?
Wouldn’t he have to have a passport?
Isn’t there ANY coordination between databases in this stupid government?
When you are on parole, your passport IS SUSPENDED duhhhhhhh....
So the parents are STILL helping him to never suffer consequences of his actions. when he kills someone else, arrest them too, as accessories.
what $$$ was the payoff to the JUDGE...
and the Judge should be investigated, tried and punished and get JUSTICE...
How are the tires on that thing? IT would be a shame if something were to happen to them
That kind of rehab would actually ehem, work. Hard labor in prison is what he needs. Hell is what he will get in the end. His mommy didhim no favors.
My answer to tailgaters is to drive reeeeeaaaaallll slllloooooow.... and not let them pass
I vaguely remember that as part of the sentence the parents agreed to send him to an ultra expensive ‘rehab’ clinic- didn’t they?
I would like to see the Judge’s bank account, either off shore or domestically, after she sentenced him. But then again, Texas is Texas.
Hell is what any of us will get, if we don't repent of our sins and place our trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May our Heavenly Father grant him, and his parents, the grace to do that.
As for the rehab ... After 10 years at least he'd know how to swing a hammer. It's a useful skill.
Sheesh. Can we bring that back, please?
And as far as petty crime goes, I think corporal punishment, like caning, is more effective and humane than incarceration.
Ths is one case where I’d almost be in favor of the local constabulatory picking up the father and charging him as an accessory ... and initiating civil forfeiture proceedings.
And see how the family likes the thought of losing their ‘affluenza’ for their precious snowflake.
I didn’t read it in the article, but if his sentence was probation for ten years, if he violates probation what then legally happens? Does the probation agreement stipulate they throw him in jail to serve out the ten years?
My fault for just reading heads and some lines of paragraphs. After I posted I thought that it had to have been tried just before a judge. I wonder how much he received ....
My fault for just reading heads and some lines of paragraphs. After I posted I thought that it had to have been tried just before a judge. I wonder how much he received ....
My fault for just reading heads and some lines of paragraphs. After I posted I thought that it had to have been tried just before a judge. I wonder how much he received ....
Affluenza is why OJ, Soros, Ted Kennedy and millions of others got away with it in life.
They won’t be so lucky in the next life however.
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