John Stuart Mill
From Utilitarianism
Last week a 16-year-old boy
named Ethan Couch was sentenced to 10-years probation for killing four people while
driving drunk. His defense team claimed Ethan wasn’t capable of making rational
decisions due to the amount of wealth he grew up with. I (like many of you) was
outraged: another case of wealth being able to buy justice.
We’ve all heard the stories
about hedge fund managers and investment bankers being able to bend the rules
they weren’t breaking without any fear of serious criminal prosecution. When we
hear about these crimes our blood boils and the public outrage machine cranks
up. These cases are usually so nuanced that by the time the nightly news anchor
starts talking about derivatives, insider trading, and collusion our collective
eyes glaze over.
This was different; the
four lives lost were real, concrete, tangible human beings who had families and
friends. This ruling is a continuing indictment of the American jurisprudence
system. We have a legal system that benefits the privileged. The national outcry
is long overdue. Until we acknowledge this problem in a public way we will
continue to get these kinds of sentences.
I don’t want revenge for
this verdict. Instead, I want a justice system that views the poverty of
juvenile defendants through the same lens it viewed the affluence of this kid.
Ethan was given a second chance because a judge deemed his family and his
upbringing worthy of it. As a nation we don’t show this kind of outrage when
underprivileged kids find themselves on opposite side of rulings like this.
Let’s be honest and admit
we have a tiered system of justice. There’s an old cliché that says it’s better
to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent. We’re the only industrialized
western country that executes its citizens. The disparities you hear civil
rights leaders talk about aren’t figments of a collective imagination. Class
and race are factored into the adjudication of justice more than some of us are
willing to admit.
