I have no reason to believe the jails in Puerto Vallarta are any worse than central lock-up in Galveston, but it gives me a mean, dirty kind of pleasure to imagine that the wicked Tonya Couch and her rotten creep of a son Ethan are sweating it out in grim Touch Of Evil-style as they await return to the United States. The Couches are the Texas mother and son who have been on the lam for the past three weeks, apparently planning to live in exile. Here’s why:

Mr. Couch was 16 when he killed four pedestrians in a drunken-driving crash near Fort Worth and pleaded guilty to four counts of manslaughter. His case quickly made national headlines twice: When a defense witness testified that he suffered from “affluenza,” too influenced by privilege and his parents’ permissiveness to know right from wrong; and when a judge appeared to accept the argument, and sentenced him to 10 years’ probation, rather than prison.

The sheriff said on Monday that he was not at all surprised that Mr. Couch’s mother had not only helped him flee, but fled with him. It has clear from the time of the accident, he said, that “there’s just no chance that she will ever think he needs to be punished or held accountable.”

Earlier in December, a Twitter user posted a short clip of Couch fils violating his probation at a boozy party. That apparently provoked Mommy and Baby to hit the road for Mexico ahead of the cops.

Boy oh boy, I wish the cops would perp-walk those two dirtbags through DFW Airport. They represent a lot of what’s wrong with America today. The only thing I wish is that Jean Boyd, the now-retired judge who gave the miserable punk probation for killing four people, was in that jail cell with them.

Here’s the bad news, though, via the Dallas Morning News:

Ethan Couch fled the country while on probation for killing four people in a drunken driving crash, but the worst punishment the “affluenza” teen faces is four months in jail and another chance, authorities said Tuesday.

And you can blame state law for that, experts say.

More:

Texas law allows the juvenile judge to keep the case in his court — and allow Couch to go free after serving time in a detention facility until his 19th birthday in April, Wilson said.

Or the judge could hand Couch’s file to the adult court system, in which a criminal district judge could sentence him up to 120 days in jail. In this scenario, the district judge would supervise him for the rest of his probation.

But, if he violates any terms while on adult probation, he could be sent to jail for up to 40 years.

“I recognize the seriousness of this man’s misconduct. … I wish the system were different, but our system of law means the best result in this case would be, in our opinion, to get him in adult court.” Wilson [the Tarrant County district attorney] said.

I hope that the authorities tail that kid every second of his life, and if he so much as steps off the curb before the light turns green, that they put him under the jail.

In case you have forgotten the details of what Ethan Couch did to all his victims, here’s a refresher.

Man, this case gets to me. These horrible people and the judge who aided and abetted their contempt for basic human decency ought to be taken to a Tijuana dungeon and sat on by a 500-foot-tall perspiring and chili-stuffed Orson Welles till the end of time.