DALLAS — THE case of Ethan Couch — the drunk 16-year-old who mowed down four bystanders in a Fort Worth suburb with his “super duty” F-350 pickup truck, but got off with 10 years’ probation after his defense team’s psychologist blamed “affluenza,” or a state of immense, amoral privilege, for the crime — has become something of a national outrage.

But here in North Texas, the reaction hasn’t been quite so vehement. Most of the vitriol has come from elsewhere: a somber and scandalized Anderson Cooper, excoriating the psychologist who testified for the defense; and Nancy Grace, the helmet-haired high priestess of outrage, demanding on “The View” that the juvenile judge who handed down the sentence “be thrown off the bench”; the petition to that effect on Change.org, which has garnered 20,000 signatures.

Granted, in the aftermath of the sentencing, politicians like Greg Abbott, the state attorney general, a Republican, and Wendy Davis, the Democratic state senator best known for her 11-hour filibuster against abortion restrictions, have wrung their hands. (Both are running for governor.) Local prosecutors are talking about new assault charges that might yield a three-year sentence for Mr. Couch (instead of the 20 years he faced for manslaughter), but success is unlikely.

On the ground, the sentiment is quieter, almost resigned. There’s been no rush to condemnation by civic leaders. No one is rioting on the Metroplex’s sidewalkless streets against Ethan Couch or the judge, Jean Hudson Boyd, who essentially let him go. (As part of his probation, Mr. Couch will be sent to a California treatment facility that offers equine therapy, cooking classes and martial-arts lessons, and his father, a wealthy sheet-metal executive, will foot the $450,000-a-year bill.)