Paris Hilton a Judicial Hissy Fit & Media Made Circus

By: Steve Yuhas

Talking heads and reporters are lamenting the fact that the Paris Hilton legal saga became a circus.  This same group of people who were doing all of the complaining neglect to point out that but for their cameras, traveling legal analysts and helicopters overhead to beam back the live coverage, the circus would have been more like a backyard pool party.  There are problems with Paris Hilton’s treatment, but it is the unfairness of it – not the fact that there is too much coverage.  She should go home. 

Judge Michael Sauer had a judicial hissy fit when he sentenced Hilton to a 45 day jail term because she drove on a suspended license in violation of her probation.

Then he became the Los Angeles equivalent of the Anna Nicole judge when he had a public feud with Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca after Baca released Hilton to her home for home confinement.  So dangerous is Hilton, apparently, that she had to be sent immediately back to jail and it was cheers around the courthouse and on the news channels when Hilton’s outburst was reported.

Note: I would have done the same thing probably – who wants to go to jail?  Anyone who coldly gets up and graciously exits is used to it – what did they want?  Marie Antoinette may have gone to the guillotine gracefully, but to most people being snatched by a deputy is not something they take very well.

The fact that an angry mob cheered when a woman was sent back to jail when all she did was drive on a suspended license that something is terribly wrong.  And here I thought mob justice was dead.

The blame for this travesty sits squarely on the laps of Judge Sauer, Sheriff Baca and the media for making this news item “breaking news” the entirety of the week.  Hilton cannot be blamed for bad editorial decision or a tug of war between a judge and a sheriff.

More interesting is the commentary that “legal experts” and commentators gave who said that Hilton deserved jail for her so-called DUI (she didn’t get a DUI) and, my personal favorite, for being a “spoiled little rich kid who finally got caught.”

Their reasoning behind their desire for her not to be on house arrest was equally as legally compelling.  They were upset that Hilton would be serving her home confinement in her house.  Oddly enough that is what house arrest means.  Commentators and the public simply didn’t like that Hilton lived in the Hollywood Hills.

It seems that one can only be placed on house arrest if they live in a hovel.  The worse the house is to the eye the better!  Note to self: go buy ugly house just in case I get in trouble so I can get house arrest without getting my head handed to me by a jealous judge driving a mid-sized car living in a 1950s bungalow.  I would hate for my judge to wake up and hear I lived in a nice place – that would end my chances at house arrest or a fair sentence.

Most troubling in all of this is that the point of our judicial system is not for judges to curry favor with the public or to draw applause by making examples of people who happen to have some money or have their pictures in magazines. 

The purpose of the system is to make sure that the public is safe and to punish wrongdoing so that they are not a danger to society, or themselves.

Are we safer now that Hilton is in jail?  Wouldn’t we be just as safe if she served the three days in jail and then stayed home for a month?

Hilton was sentenced to more time in jail than people who commit first offenses on many things including assault, battery, injury to a child and some sexual crimes.  In these cases many first time offenders are put under house arrest, probation or a mixture of the two.  Hilton is serving time in jail for a crime the news stations can’t seem to get right and for an extraordinary amount of time.

I’m fine with punishment.  I am not fine with a system that says one group of people gets one punishment and another group receives another.

Hilton is not a danger to anyone and her confinement before being sent home by Baca was more than enough.  It seems that the judge got up and heard the news and decided to play to public opinion and legal panel discussions.

The example he should have made was out of the sheriff who sent her home – not Hilton.  She became a football in this game of one-upmanship and that was not fair to her.

Proof of how bad the situation is comes from Al Sharpton.  His presence alone makes the Paris Hilton mess worse because he tends to drop in to take advantage of any situation and should anyone be kept in jail when Reverend Al says so?  My theory is that if Sharpton believes someone deserves jail – that person does not.  Hello Tawana Brawley.

If Paris Hilton was a GITMO detainee and we all saw her being handcuffed and driven away from her home, the ACLU would be having press conferences and a bunch of peaceniks would be having a vigil. 

The news people who complained that the news was all about Paris Hilton could have gone with another story.  Instead, they sent their top legal pundits to cover Hilton’s return to jail instead of, oh I don’t know, the case of an 18-year-old woman who was killed by a sadist and dumped only to be found later by search teams. 

We now need to ask: is house arrest only for the poor and those who can’t afford a nice home?  Should celebrity be a mark against you when you go before a judge?  I guess so because that is what the public was clamoring for and that is what legal panels and news folks were demanding.

The cliché about Hilton being “just like everyone else” was great until she was treated the opposite of how everyone else was treated.  With legal folks from Wisconsin, Georgia and all over the country invited to appear on panels about this case the one thing they forgot to do was check the law in California.

If wealth and popularity is the measure by which people are now going to be sent to jail the place will be a rather lonely one for deputies. 

Judge Sauer made his point – we got it – he’s in charge and Hilton has been subjected to the idiocy of a system that finds poor people who live in a dump worthy of house arrest, but not wealthy people who choose not to live in squalor. 

One day of jail was more than enough.  Send Hilton home and unless Sauer is looking to be discovered like the Anna Nicole lawyer – enough already and do the right thing.

Justice should not be harsher for individuals just because they happen to have a Blackberry full of names of interesting people or the numbers of whom to call when you need a table at a restaurant or to notify people that you need access to plane.

Class envy is one thing for the angry mob, but quite another for a judge and Michael Sauer is one class envying jurist.

Steve Yuhas is a radio talk show host on AM 600 KOGO and may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com