{"id":3058,"date":"2013-12-17T17:41:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T00:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scramsystems.com\/blog\/?p=3058"},"modified":"2016-02-18T07:34:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T07:34:15","slug":"rich-defense-teen-blames-affluenza-drunk-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/rich-defense-teen-blames-affluenza-drunk-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"&quot;Too Rich&quot; Defense? Teen Blames \u201cAffluenza\u201d for Drunk&#160;Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week a Texas judge handed down what many see as a light sentence to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.today.com\/video\/today\/53836154\/#53831922\">teen who was behind the wheel<\/a> in a deadly drunk driving crash. The boy\u2019s defense: He is too rich to know right from&#160;wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch was driving nearly twice the speed limit with a BAC three times the legal limit for adults when he plowed his truck into a group of people standing by the side of the road. The crash killed four and injured several of Couch\u2019s passengers, including a teen who is paralyzed as a result of his&#160;injuries.<\/p>\n<p>At his trial, Couch\u2019s attorney brought in a psychologist who argued that the <a href=\"http:\/\/healthland.time.com\/2013\/12\/13\/drunk-driving-teen-avoids-jail-because-of-the-parenting-he-received\/\">teen\u2019s upbringing<\/a> in a wealthy household often left him unsupervised and undisciplined, giving him a sense of entitlement and cushioning him from the\u00a0consequences of his choices. Calling it a case of \u201caffluenza,\u201d the defense claimed that Couch shouldn\u2019t be\u00a0jailed because the lack of appropriate parenting made him unable to anticipate the harm his actions could cause.\u00a0 Ultimately, Couch was sentenced in juvenile court to 10 years of probation instead of the 20 years in prison he was&#160;facing.<\/p>\n<p>Understandably, many are outraged at the sentence, and not just because the punishment doesn\u2019t seem to fit the terrible crime. Psychologists across the country have denounced the defense\u2019s presentation of \u201caffluenza\u201d as a mental health issue. A <a href=\"http:\/\/ideas.time.com\/2013\/12\/14\/psychologist-affluenza-is-junk-science\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Fcolumnists+%28TIME%3A+Ideas%29\">piece in <i>Time Magazin<\/i>e<\/a> notes the \u201ccondition\u201d is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association and there is no empirical, peer-reviewed research on it as a psychiatric&#160;disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Some have also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afro.com\/sections\/news\/afro_briefs\/story.htm?storyID=80778\">expressed a concern<\/a>\u00a0that the sentence suggests that the wealthy are given special treatment by the justice system. As part of\u00a0his sentence, Couch will spend a year in a rehabilitation program that reportedly costs nearly half a million dollars, with his parents footing the bill. Opponents argue that this stipulation would be unavailable to defendants without Couch\u2019s resources. And if Couch truly believes that his family\u2019s money makes him immune from serious consequences, does a probation sentence merely reinforce that&#160;belief?<\/p>\n<p>The question becomes, did the judge actually buy Couch\u2019s \u201caffluenza\u201d defense or were there other factors behind the sentence? Some reports state that Couch\u2019s age might have made the judge more inclined toward rehabilitation and probation, regardless of his defense. Others have suggested that the 10 years of probation will actually put Couch under supervision longer than a prison sentence would have, as he could have been released after just 2&#160;years.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think of the judge\u2019s decision to impose probation instead of prison for this teen drunk driver? Should someone\u2019s upbringing\u2014positive or negative\u2014influence their&#160;punishment?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week a Texas judge handed down what many see as a light sentence to a teen who was behind the wheel in a deadly drunk driving crash. The boy\u2019s defense: He is too rich to know right from&#160;wrong. Sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch was driving nearly twice the speed limit with a BAC three times the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[46,79,218,237,247,296,737],"class_list":["post-3058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drunk-driving","category-underage-drinking-2","tag-affluenza","tag-alcohol-fueled-offenses","tag-drinking-alcohol-problems","tag-drunk-driving-2","tag-dui","tag-feature","tag-underage-drinking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Too Rich&quot; Defense? 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