Affluenza

Chanur

Shit Posting Professional
<Gold Donor>
26,647
38,867
Unless you have never driven drunk in your life, especially as a teen I don't want to hear all this pontification.

Family is going to lose all their money, and the kid gets one chance, just one chance to turn his life around or he goes to jail. And he's the one who has to live with all this. I think for some reason people go around assuming he's smug and happy for getting off.

Says more about those people than him. It's justice, not vengeance.
I absolutely NEVER drove drunk as a teenager. And we do not know the family will lose their money, they could win that just like they won this case. What then? Will you feel the four victims were represented well?
Since he didn't "understand" the consequences I really doubt he is all broken up about this. The guy deserves jail.
 

Rod-138

Trakanon Raider
1,137
888
Donte Stallworth ( NFL) had a similar situation come up a few years ago.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=7867036
 

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,430
73,490
Unless you have never driven drunk in your life, especially as a teen I don't want to hear all this pontification.

Family is going to lose all their money, and the kid gets one chance, just one chance to turn his life around or he goes to jail. And he's the one who has to live with all this. I think for some reason people go around assuming he's smug and happy for getting off.

Says more about those people than him. It's justice, not vengeance.
Never drove drunk.

And the big problem I have with the verdict is the 'kid gets one chance or he goes to jail' bit seems like bullshit. If you can drunk drive and kill a family without a harsh penalty, why wouldn't you expect to escape a harsh penalty for failure to do whatever bullshit the judge ordered? All I can hope is that something in the legalese allows him to be retried with the same charges and he gets a different judge that isn't paid off or has his head up his ass.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
19,836
13,353
I really hate my parents for not being rich and ignoring me as a child. Think of all the things I was never able to get away with.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
Never driven drunk in my life. This is such an absolute bullshit verdict and I can't believe more people aren't upset about this.

Jait that may possibly be the worst post I've ever read
 
653
1
Death seems a bit extreme. Assuming intent matters, he didn'tintendto kill anyone, though he callously endangered the lives of everyone around him by knowingly driving drunk. I'd guess somewhere between 10-30 years in prison is appropriate, depending on how he handles himself both now and during his prison stay (assuming he got the sentence he deserved).

I hope the kid's family is financially crippled by the settlements. The environment that fostered his behavior is insane. His father gave him a secluded home to live in by himself, a car 3 years before he could drive, and money to buy drugs and booze. Sick fuck.

Also, not only did he kill 4 people trying to change a tire, he seriously injured 2 of the passengers in his truck. One has a serious brain injury an has been in a coma since the accident. To have no actual consequence for this (a few years in a spa isn't a consequence) is the absolute worst message society could possibly send to someone like this.
It was a little bit hyperbolic, but I don't think removing this family's lineage from the gene pool would be such a bad thing...
 

Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
44,652
93,309
Death seems a bit extreme. Assuming intent matters, he didn'tintendto kill anyone, though he callously endangered the lives of everyone around him by knowingly driving drunk. I'd guess somewhere between 10-30 years in prison is appropriate, depending on how he handles himself both now and during his prison stay (assuming he got the sentence he deserved).

I hope the kid's family is financially crippled by the settlements. The environment that fostered his behavior is insane. His father gave him a secluded home to live in by himself, a car 3 years before he could drive, and money to buy drugs and booze. Sick fuck.

Also, not only did he kill 4 people trying to change a tire, he seriously injured 2 of the passengers in his truck. One has a serious brain injury an has been in a coma since the accident. To have no actual consequence for this (a few years in a spa isn't a consequence) is the absolute worst message society could possibly send to someone like this.
Driving drunk = intent to kill. Id have no problem taking the little shit out back and putting him down.
 

Haast

Lord Nagafen Raider
3,281
1,636
It was a little bit hyperbolic, but I don't think removing this family's lineage from the gene pool would be such a bad thing...
The kid is fucked up enough that it probably wouldn't be a loss.

Driving drunk = intent to kill. Id have no problem taking the little shit out back and putting him down.
It's arguable in this case since the kid knew he was drunk and still piled a ton of unrestrained people in his pickup and sped around recklessly. That's why it's especially fucked he is not being punished.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
19,836
13,353
Can't get to that article, getting a 502 error. Give me a TL;DR
 

Bladefury

N00b
41
27
What bothers me is that, if affluenza is real (which is totally bullshit, but I digress), then why are we not punishing the people who GAVE him the affluenza? Lock up his parents for 20 years, each.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
19,836
13,353
Being affluent has nothing to do with not understanding the consequences of your actions nor does it have anything to do with whether or not you should be held responsible for something.

It doesn't matter what your financial situation is, if you've never been held accountable for your actions you're going to be a shithead. If you grow up in a household where stealing is the everyday norm and encouraged and "fuck them if they don't like it, you're bigger than them, what are they going to do?" guess what, you're going to steal and you are going to grow up thinking it's OK. If your parents never punish you you'll never learn that every action has a consequence. This has nothing to do with how much money your family has.

If you live in a society where people are ignorant of the health risks associated with smoking, and everyone around you smokes, you'll probably smoke without ever knowing the consequences. Parents are responsible for teaching their kids accountability regardless of status.

That in and of itself is the biggest reason this entire verdict and "affluenza" defense is horse shit. Just look at the rape epidemic in Africa.

The legal system just excused shitty, absentee parenting because these people have money. Not every rich kid is a worthless piece of shit but if this is precedent, every single kid who grew up in an affluent family is now able to pretend they didn't know what they were doing, however the impoverished will never be able to make the same claim because... well there is no reason for the disconnect. It's just absolutely retarded pseudo crackpot psychology.
 

Itlan

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,994
744
I'm really poor so I don't understand responsibility or circumstance. I eat roaches ffs.
 

Xequecal

Trump's Staff
11,559
-2,388
Driving drunk = intent to kill. Id have no problem taking the little shit out back and putting him down.
Oh, please. The fanaticism about drunk driving has become goddamn ridiculous. It's not about public safety anymore, just about the demonization of alcohol consumption in general. There's a whole list of things that you can do in a car that are just as dangerous or more dangerous that people do all the time, but because it's not related to evil evil booze, nobody has this attitude about any of those.

I work the night shift. When I was getting used to it, I drove home a few times so tired I fell asleep at the wheel. During those times, I was more of a danger to everyone on the road than all but the worst of the drunks, but I can tell people about this and receive nothing more than mild censure at worst. Some people even have sympathy. Then there's texting while driving. Not only have studies shown that this is many times more dangerous than DUI, but there have been multiple high-profile accidents that resulted in a lot of deaths. It's also much easier to avoid doing than driving under the influence, and of course much easier to avoid driving home tired after working a bunch of hours. But because it's not related to EVIL alcohol consumption, it's not even illegal in many states, and in the others it's just equivalent to a speeding ticket. Nobody really cares if you do it, either.

I'm very skeptical of anyone who claims they've never driven under the influence unless they don't drink at all or very rarely. 0.08 BAC is very easy to hit, everyone metabolizes alcohol at different rates and it can even vary wildly in the same person. If you drink enough sometimes you're still at this level even after going to sleep and waking up in the morning, I'd bet quite a few of Monday morning commuters are still technically "drunk" from the previous night.