In case you’re worrying over where 16-year-old Ethan Couch has been since last summer, when he got fall-down drunk and killed four people in a gruesome drunken-driving wreck, set your mind at ease.
He has been staying at an exceptionally pleasant campus-style residential counseling center near Newport Beach, Calif. It specializes in chef-prepared meals, equine therapy, martial-arts training, yoga and nature hikes.


It’s described as a “respectful recovery environment” where teenagers can get the “unconditional love they need to heal.”


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It wasn’t the first screw-up for this model young citizen. According to trial testimony, he has been arrested on other alcohol-related charges. At one point, he was caught with an underaged girl, undressed and passed out, in his car.


A psychologist hired by the defense testified, in an elegant rendering of courtroom logic, that because he has gotten off without serious punishment in the past, he cannot be seriously punished in this case either.


State District Judge Jean Boyd decided the sentence and is now weighing Couch’s plea to be sent back to the same California rehab.


Couch’s parents have expressed a willingness to pony up nearly a half-million dollars for his treatment. During the trial, Boyd explained that she doubted he will get the treatment he needs in the state’s correctional system.