Are you a sociopathic rich person who has raised your little buttercup with absolutely no moral guidance for the world around him? Have you taught him that he is a Randian ubermensch striding the world like a colossus? That others are as ants? That taxes are for little people? That he can kill four people and, like, not go to jail? Then it is a day to rejoice, as somewhere there is a judge who will take your breathtakingly terrible parenting of insisting there be no consequences for your rancid little crotchfruit and use it as a reason not to give any consequences to your rancid little crotchfruit! Man, it is so weird how things always seem to work out for the best!

Via Gawker, we learn that Texas Judge Jean Boyd gave a sentence of probation and private half-million-dollar "treatment" to a 16-year-old boy who got reaaaal liquored up and killed four pedestrians, including a mother and daughter and a youth pastor, as well as putting one of his own passengers in the hospital, where he remains, six months later, "with severe brain damage."

But is he depraved on account of he wasn't deprived? Sure, we will go with "that," just like his defense attorneys did!

Prior to sentencing, a psychologist called by the defense, Dr. G. Dick Miller, testified that Couch's life could be salvaged with one to two years' treatment and no contact with his parents. [...]

Miller said Couch's parents gave him "freedoms no young person should have." He called Couch a product of "affluenza," where his family felt that wealth bought privilege and there was no rational link between behavior and consequences.

He said Couch got whatever he wanted. As an example, Miller said Couch's parents gave no punishment after police ticketed the then-15-year-old when he was found in a parked pickup with a passed out, undressed, 14-year-old girl.

On the one hand, as liberals, we are all for bleedy-heart judges and second chances (sometimes), and as rational people we understand that idiot fucking teenage boys aren't really all that responsible for being fucking idiots because "brains and stuff," and we would hate to see a teenager put away for the 20 years the prosecution was seeking.

On the other hand, when you're using the "I'm too rich to be held responsible for my terrible crimes" you're supposed to do it just by hiring really good lawyers, not by saying it out loud. It is a new Twinkie Defense that can go fuck itself, right in the ear.

[WFAA, via Gawker]