Let’s start with this knucklehead [remember, this italicized input in Cases comes “filtered through my thoughts of being upset these things happened”]. Maybe I should say, “Let’s start with this killer!” [I believe no matter how I want to describe what he is; I can at least say he is a person who killed people. Or was it his parents who killed people?]
On June 15, 2013, 16-year-old Ethan Anthony Couch killed four people while drinking and driving in Burleson, Texas. Not only was he illegally drinking but he was illegally driving on a restricted license and speeding. He lost control of his vehicle and plowed through a group of people standing near a disabled SUV and then plowed into a parked vehicle which was there to assist the SUV.
Besides the four people killed in the collision, there were nine others injured. Two passengers in Couch’s truck suffered serious bodily injury, one with complete paralysis.
Couch was indicted on four counts of intoxication manslaughter for recklessly driving under the influence. In December 2013, Judge Jean Hudson Boyd sentenced Couch to ten years of probation and subsequently ordered him to therapy at a long-term in-patient facility. That sentence was imposed after Couch’s attorneys argued the teen had “affluenza” and needed rehabilitation instead of prison. The sentence, believed by many to be incredibly lenient, set off what The New York Times called “an emotional, angry debate that has stretched far beyond the North Texas suburbs.”<1>
But wait, the story gets better:
Couch became the subject of a manhunt and was listed in the National Fugitive Database on December 11, 2015, after his probation officer was unable to contact him. On December 28, 2015, authorities detained Couch and his mother in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. He was brought back to the United States and on April 13, 2016, was sentenced to serve two years in jail for violating his probation – the probation he was on for killing people; the probation he was on because he never went to prison for killing people; the probation he was on because he had “affluenza!”
By the way, did you notice I mentioned in the previous paragraph, “authorities detained Couch and his mother” in Mexico? Just to keep things clear: Couch was on the run in Mexico. HE WAS ON THE RUN BECAUSE HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE ON PROBATION! CAN YOU SPELL THE WORD “DUMB” WITHOUT LOOKING?!? That’s why he was detained, brought back to the United States, and put in prison. And his mother was the person who was helping him run! She was helping him run from not being in prison for killing people – after she was one of the parents who raised her son improperly so he could get an asinine “affluenza” defense!
What is affluenza? Affluenza is a term made from two words: affluence and influenza. Its combined definition is “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” The term “affluenza” has also been used to refer to an inability to understand the consequences of one’s actions because of financial privilege, such as in the Case of Ethan Couch.<2> The bottom line of the definition: If you’re rich, you shouldn’t be blamed for not having any common sense cuz you’ve had too much money to have to really learn how life works.
If you were the parents or the family or the friends of any of the people who were killed by Couch, you would undoubtedly be among those who are extremely upset with Couch, his affluenza, and his sentencing. And, starting right now, if you hadn’t already been, you should also be extremely upset with his bad parents!
Okay, whether this is a crock or not; whether we can blame his parents for making him “too rich” or not; whether he has other mental problems going beyond understanding he killed four people or not; or whether we couldn’t care less about any of this, or not, because it didn’t happen to our child or anyone we know . . .
Here is why we should care: It makes our point! Fred and Tonya Couch, the parents of Ethan Anthony Couch, should be the people who were put on trial and punished for killing people! What? They should be punished because their boy killed some people? No – they should be punished because THEY are murderers! They made a murderer and let it out into the wild! Such is the factual verdict of affluenza! Someone is bad by virtue of them making bad! The people who did the making should be responsible for committing the murders!
CITED REFERENCES
1. Wikipedia contributors, “Ethan Couch,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch (accessed April 4, 2019).
2. Wikipedia contributors, “Affluenza,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza (accessed April 4, 2019).
