Crime

Affluenza Patient Zero Sees If Medical Marijuana Will Cure Him -- It Didn't

This isn't the first time since the "affluenza" trial that Couch has gotten into trouble.

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Ethan Couch

Ethan Couch was arrested… again.

The Texas man whose drunken car crash killed four people in 2013 when he was 16 rose to national prominence when a psychologist coined the term “affluenza” to successfully get Couch a sweetheart sentence. The argument raised at sentencing was that Couch’s wealthy upbringing prevented him from learning any boundaries and, consequently, shielded him from responsibility for going three times over the legal limit and crashing a car. The judge put Couch on 10 years probation for the quadruple manslaughter, despite having sentenced another teen to 20 years for one drunk driving death. But that kid was poor so justice was apparently served.

Couch was arrested for a probation violation after THC showed up in a mandatory drug screen. Couch’s attorneys ask everyone to withhold judgement until they have an “opportunity to conduct an investigation to determine if, in fact, Ethan ingested THC and, if so, if it was a voluntary act on his part.” Prepare for the “someone forgot to flag the edibles” myth.

This isn’t the first time since the “affluenza” trial that Couch has gotten into trouble. In 2015, he skipped the country with his mother, triggering a manhunt that cornered the pair in Puerto Vallarta. For this transgression, he got 720 days in jail which left even those with serious reservations about the value of the carceral state saying, “what the hell, man?” His mother — who actually might be directly responsible for this one — is still awaiting trial for “hindering apprehension of a known felon and money laundering.” For her sake, hopefully she grew up rich too.

The tension throughout the “affluenza” story is always between the hot take to blame the parents and the reactionary belief that upbringing shouldn’t guide sentencing. The latter enables a draconian penal system that criminalizes poverty and abuse creating an unbreakable cycle of punishment. But the former unwittingly props up this ludicrous defense — itself a trolling of well-meaning efforts to introduce context to juvenile justice — and provides new avenues for criminalizing poverty by justifying the addition of more poor defendants to every crime. And defendants that can be tried as adults as well!

Poverty can drive someone to dealing drugs to get by. Wealth does not drive someone to commit vehicular manslaughter. This really should be the end of both the poor little rich boy defense.

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‘Affluenza teen’ Ethan Couch arrested for probation violation [ABC News]

Earlier: Affluenza Patient Zero Gets Out Of Quarantine
So Maybe This Affluenza Thing Really Was B.S. — Arrest Warrant Issued
The Affluenza Kid And Privilege (This Time The Evidentiary Kind)
In Defense Of The Rich White Boy Who Killed Four People And Got Away With It

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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