Ethan Couch got the type of
justice that is often meted out to the children of the rich, powerful or
well-connected. One of our local
representatives has a son who habitually drives drunk. Yet, he has not served significant jail
time. I live in Athens, where drunken
behavior is not uncommon among students.
In court, I have seen well-heeled parents and their children appear in
court with good lawyers, well-dressed, compliant and remorseful. They go to PTD (pre-trial diversion) or drug
court – ways to avoid having a permanent criminal history. The wretched of the earth go to jail. Color and class matter in the criminal
justice system.
Though it did not get much
mention, it was well-known that George Zimmerman’s family was tied into the
local courthouse crowd. Judge Jean
Boyd’s sentence of ten years’ probation is not unusual, but it is
disturbing. Black or low-income
defendants are more likely to get prison time when they commit the same or
lesser offenses than the well-to-do.
If Ethan Couch had been black and
living in the deep South and his victims were white, it is virtually certain
that he would have been sentenced to 10 years (or more) in prison. Nevertheless, I am not terribly opposed to
the ten year probated sentence. I only
urge us to consider that if affluenza is a debilitating influence, imagine the
effect of poverty, deprivation and racism.
All young defendants deserve the opportunity to have great counsel, have
a second chance to get it right, benefit from equine therapy and become productive
citizens. In this way, we might climb
down from the precipice that has made the U.S. the incarceration nation.
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