Couch, who killed four people and seriously wounded two others while driving drunk when he was 16, will receive new probation terms.
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Ethan Couch was given probation for killing four people, after his attorney argued that he had been coddled by his parents and suffered from “affluenza”.
The possible 120-day jail sentence stems from Couch’s recent probation violation in which he, and his mother, fled to Mexico.
Prosecutors want the case moved to the adult system, where Couch could serve up to 40 years in prison for a subsequent probation violation. With his mother, Tonya Couch, he fled Texas in December, apparently to avoid arrest for violating the probation deal after video on social media appeared to show him at a party where alcohol was being consumed.
Couch has been in custody in Tarrant County, where Fort Worth is located, since he was brought back from Mexico last month.
Couch’s touched off a firestorm of national outrage after he got what many saw as a slap on the wrist, probation, in his intoxication manslaughter case. The conditions of the teen’s probation are expected to become much stricter than in the juvenile court.
Molina attended with his mother and brother, Alexander Lemus, who said that what he wanted from the Couches was “that they pay”. That will happen sometime before his 19 birthday in April.
By having the case transferred to the adult system, Couch will not face the threat of decades in prison unless he violates probation in the future.
“I believe now, with what Ethan Couch has seen [in jail], he has a real sense of what that world is like”, Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said.
According to Reuters, the hearing was to decide if Ethan Couch’s case would stay in the juvenile court despite Couch already sitting in the adult prison.
Her son remained in Mexico until he dropped his legal fight and was returned to North Texas on January 28.
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Jordan said the district attorney’s office will also request Friday that the judge rule to continue to detain Couch until the time that adult district court hearing takes place, Jordan said. “He’s doing more than 10 years on probation”. She has been charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon. Ethan Couch is being held in solitary confinement at the Tarrant County adult jail.
