Tag Archives: Jean Boyd

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Boy’s probation still hard to swallow

Ethan Couch’s probationary sentence has been lined out.

It still stinks.

Couch is the 16-year-old Tarrant County boy whose drunken recklessness killed four people in June 2013. He lost control of his big Ford pickup while driving at three times the legal limit for blood-alcohol content. Several of the victims who were injured may never recover fully from their wounds. One of them suffered brain damage. Couch had been drinking at his parents’ house and stole some beer from a retailer.

Four people are dead because this youngster was too drunk to drive. A Tarrant County trial judge, Jean Boyd, decided Couch didn’t need to serve any time behind bars. She sentenced him to 10 years probation. How did the boy manage to skate past any jail or prison time? His parents were able to hire top-notch lawyers to defend him.

The case has coined a new term: the “Affluenza” defense.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/02/no-time-for-ethan-couch-no-justice-for-his-many-victims.html/

On Wednesday, Boyd formalized the terms of Couch’s probation. He’ll have to serve some time in a rehab center. It’s supposed to be a highly regulated environment. Couch will complete his rehab, will finish his probation and will be able to go about his life.

Many of his victims won’t be so fortunate.

Even from my vantage point a good distance from where this tragedy occurred, it’s apparent that justice wasn’t done.

Prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence to teach this youngster a lesson for the carnage he created and the misery he brought to victims and their families. Dallas Morning News blogger Mike Hashimoto said the sentence sought “didn’t seem unreasonable as accountability for the trail of death and destruction Couch left behind.”

Eric Couch needed to be taught a tough lesson.

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‘Affluenza’ defense pays off for drunken teen

Ten years probation.

That’s what a Tarrant County teenager got for killing four people while driving drunk. In fact, Ethan Couch’s blood-alcohol level was three times the minimum legal definition of drunken driving.

Four lives are snuffed out and for this the kid gets probation? That’s it?

Amazing.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20131212-despite-four-deaths-tarrant-judge-buys-affluenza-excuse.ece

The judge who handed down this virtual non-punishment is Jean Boyd, who presides over a juvenile court in Fort Worth. As the Dallas Morning News editorial attached here, the judge apparently bought a line of defense that strains credulity to the extreme. The Morning News opined: “Boyd apparently swallowed whole the defense argument that Couch was just a poor, little rich boy effectively abused by parents who set no boundaries and gave him everything except actual parenting. ‘Affluenza,’ as a defense psychologist called it, or wealth assuming privilege.”

Prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence for the kid, who’s now 16. On June 15, his recklessness killed those four people and wounded gravely two others who likely may never recover fully from their injuries. That is a path of death and destruction that cried out for some punishment other than just a probated sentence. As the Morning News noted in its editorial, Couch might have been paroled by his 19th birthday under Texas law had the prosecutors gotten their wish.

Police on the scene called the accident the worst they had seen. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said he will have trouble explaining probation to his children and grandchildren, given what he witnessed from this crime.

Justice wasn’t done with this decision. Shame on the judge.