Less than three years after he killed four people in a drunk driving incident and got off with only a 10-year probation, Ethan Couch violated the agreement by fleeing the country to Mexico, where he was caught a few weeks later hiding out with his mother.

Couch is infamous for the defense his team of lawyers raised, one that the judge believed: afluenza. According to his lawyers, Couch did not know the difference between right and wrong, leading to the incident in which he killed and injured  innocent people.

No matter what mistakes the parents made in this case, and considering his mother is the one who helped him flee to Mexico, she obviously is at least part of the problem, Couch still should have been made to pay for his mistake like anyone else, privileged or not.

After all, Couch had to take a driving course to get a driver’s license. There is education in that course about the dangers of drinking and driving. Not to mention television ads, billboards, and Internet stories. Additionally, he was not of legal drinking age, meaning that any amount of alcohol he consumed was against the law.The fact that he did it in excess and ended the lives of innocent people simply compounds the issue.

Just because someone grew up spoiled doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be punished when they do something wrong. Couch should have been in jail with other criminals from the very beginning.

It is not fair to the families of the victims, to anyone else who has ever actually paid for this crime, or the legal system that now has to try to extradite Couch from Mexico and figure out this mess that he received a “get out of jail free” card the first time around. Hopefully this time, the judge will get it right.