The cliché holds that life imitates art. In Texas, that turns out to be true. And the art in question is a famous Broadway musical.
One of the early songs in “West Side Story” has the gang mocking a cop, Officer Krupke, and the criminal-justice system that even the kids realize made excuses for juvenile deliquency. Here’s just one small portion from the lyrics, where they imagine a judge delivering his verdict and the gang-member responding:
Hear ye, hear ye, in the opinion of this court, this child is depraved on account he ain’t had a normal home.
Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!
On Broadway, the line gets laughs. In Texas, it became part of the defense for Ethan Couch, a 16-year-old who killed four people and severely wounded two others when he drunkenly rammed his pickup into pedestrians and a parked car. According to a psychologist who testified at his trial, young Couch was a victim of “affluenza.” In other words, he was spoiled rotten and thus not entirely responsible for his actions.
Now, Judge Jean Boyd said the affluenza defense played no part in her decision to spare Couch jail time and instead sentence him to probation and rehab. But however you look at this, it’s hard to call the outcome justice.
We take Judge Boyd at her word. Even so, the lack of jail time makes us wonder: What message is the court sending about personal responsibility when its answer to someone who killed four people by his recklessness is rehab?