To be Rich in America

I went to visit my mother on Saturday and she was watching this show called Young, Hot and Crooked or something like that. The first episode was okay. The second one started and I saw the name Ethan Couch and I asked my mother to turn it because I couldn't watch it without getting upset. She wanted to see how the show portrayed the story, so she didn't turn the channel. 

I watched the show and just as I predicted, I was livid by the end of it. In fact, I'm still upset. How a person can kill four people and badly injure two others and only have to go to rehab is beyond me. I don't care if his parents were terrible parents (which they were) or if he was never really punished for his previous crimes (which he wasn't). I care about the message that was sent to the families of the dead and the injured. I care about the message that was sent to Ethan. If ever there was a time for a young man to meet with consequences, surely this was it. The worst part was that it wasn't Ethan's first drunk driving offense. He had already been given a slap on the wrist and yet, here he was again, only this time he had blood on his hands and his parents, his attorneys and the judge who let him go essentially told him to wash off the blood and move on with his life. One would think that the cure to Affluenza (being so rich that you never have to deal with the  consequences of your actions) would be to have to deal with the consequences of your actions. And to anyone dumb enough to argue that 10 years probation and rehab is a real consequence, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that there are people in jail for petty things like not paying tickets. This kid killed four people and was not sentenced to any jail time. 

I truly hope that the boy's family somehow paid off the judge because that is easier for me to swallow than the thought that the Affluenza defense worked. 

The verdict proved what poor people in this country have always known: the justice system is different for the rich. Do rich people sometimes go to jail for their crimes? Of course! Do poor people sometimes get off for their crimes? Yes! But being able to afford the best attorneys often comes with lighter sentences or no sentence at all. It is an advantage that is not known to poor people and I don't say that as a way of begrudging rich people for having money, but rather as a way of pointing out that the justice system favors them.

The justice system never has been and probably never will be fair, nor is it equal. In America, just as in most of the world, money talks.