Murder is a unacceptable, inhuman, and permanent action. If you kill someone while drinking and driving you are a murderer. When you get behind the wheel of an automobile intoxicated, you recognize the risk that you are taking, not only with your own life, but the lives of those with you and on the road. There is no rational behind something as deadly as drinking and driving, except apparently affluenza.

In June of 2013, 16-year-old Ethan Couch killed four people and injured nine while driving drunk in Burleson Texas. Despite driving with a suspended license and speeding, all while intoxicated, he was only given ten years probation and mandatory therapy. Couch’s lawyer was able to keep his client out of prison by claiming that he had “affluenza,” meaning that he had never been disciplined and therefore could not determine right from wrong on his own. After violating his parole in early December of 2015, his parole officer tried to get in contact with him but was unable to. By the end of the month, Couch was found and detained at a hotel in Mexico where he had fled.

Couch was sentenced to probation in December of 2013 for driving drunk with seven passengers in his car. After the crash, Couch’s blood alcohol concentration was tested and found to be three times the legal limit of an adult. Valium (an often abused prescription drug used to treat anxiety) was also found in his system. While none of Couch’s passengers were killed, Couch swerved into two cars and killed 4 individuals before his car flipped and hit a tree.

Despite the fact that the Judge let Couch off with only 10 years probation, Couch did not elect to make a change in his life. Instead he decided to break his probation by consuming alcohol. Then instead of owning up to his mistake, Couch fled, not just his area, but the country. This led to him being put on the National Fugitive Database and a man hunt being conducted.

Upon being found at a hotel in Mexico, Couch was not particularly laying low as he had racked up debt at a local strip club and had been found in possession of a fire arm by hotel staff. He is currently being held in a Mexican detention center frighted his being extradited.

Now Couch will be tried in to adult court, and I say, he should be. Not being disciplined as a child does not excuse getting behind the wheel of a car, not just alone, but with 7 other lives inside. To then kill four innocent individuals due to such reckless actions and get away with it is baffling. Now that Couch has blown this one get out of jail free card, hopefully justice will be served and he will serve time not only for violating his probation but for the death of innocent lives.