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‘Affluenza Teen’ Hearing Decides Fate Of Ethan Couch [Breaking News]

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 06:10 PST, Jan 29, 2016

A hearing is underway to decide what should be done with “affluenza teen” Ethan Couch until his February violation of probation hearing. The choices were bail, stay in the juvenile facility, or straight to adult jail. The judge decided for the middle option and decided that Couch will remain in the juvenile facility until the late February hearing. Clad in a beige jumpsuit, Couch didn’t say a word and was returned to juvie. Judge Timothy Menikos agreed with Couch’s attorney that the 18-year-old should stay in a juvenile facility for now.

According to the Inquisitr, Ethan Couch did an about-face and stopped fighting deportation and returned to Texas without a word. Couch had spent nearly a month in a Guadalajara prison while his mother was deported back to Texas and his father filed for divorce.

CBS News is reporting that the judge chose to keep Couch in a juvenile facility, even though he is not a juvenile, while they wait for the February hearing that will decide how he is punished from here on out.

Sheriff Dee Anderson was disappointed.

“If Ethan Couch’s case had been moved to adult court, the judge could have ordered Couch to spend up to 120 days in jail for violating his probation and then finish the remainder of his 10-year probation sentence, according to Tarrant County District Attorney spokeswoman Samantha Jordan. If his case had been moved to adult court, and he violated his probation again, he could have gotten up to 10 years in prison for each of the four people killed in the drunken-driving wreck.”

ABC News quoted Tarrant County prosector Sharen Wilson as saying that Couch is an afterthought, and people should not add to his notoriety.

Wilson urged the public not to “feed his ego with notoriety” or focus on the chances Couch “squandered,” but to instead focus on the victims of the wreck, which also severely injured two people.

“Behind every incident are the victims, and this should be their story,” Wilson said in a statement Friday.

Dee Anderson doesn’t understand that why Couch shouldn’t be housed with other people his own age.

“He’s certainly capable of understanding now what’s going on, and I’d feel better if he was there.”

A move to an adult prison would mean Couch will do 120 days, plus stay on probation for 10 more years. If and when Couch violates probation again, he would face 10 years.

The Dallas Morning News says that the goal of prosectors is to get Couch behind bars for a long as possible. Had he followed the rules of his probation, he would have remained in the juvenile system.

“Our goal is to put him in the adult system and wait for him to do what I believe he will do,” prosecutor Richard Alpert said after Friday’s hearing.

The word is that Ethan Couch is enjoying his notorious status, which fosters the feeling that Couch can do what he wants.

“Ethan has gotten all this notoriety,” Alpert said. “The reason why we’re here is for the victims.”

Scott Brown, Couch’s lawyer, said this isn’t the case, and that Ethan Couch is worried about his future. Couch’s father, Fred Couch, chose to miss the hearing, and his mother Tonya Couch, is on house arrest, so it was just Ethan Couch and his legal team. Colleen Sheehy-Church of MADD said that Ethan Couch does not seem sorry about the deaths of four people.

“A man who kills four people and seriously injured someone… needs to be remorseful,” she said. “Ethan Couch is not remorseful.”

Tim McLaughlin, the father of one of the victims, refuses to believe that Couch is sorry for what he has done. He believes that Ethan Couch only cares about Ethan Couch.

“When you flee the country,” McLaughlin said, “that doesn’t show remorse.”

Do you think the judge should have let Ethan Couch sit in adult prison for three weeks?

[Photo by National Immigration Institute]

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