Burton Katz
Paris Hilton: Will she really go to jail?
“No work furlough, no work release, no electronic monitoring, no weekends, no city jail,” proclaimed a peeved Michael T. Sauer, a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge who sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days of straight jail time. Since that pronouncement of sentencing, the pundits and the public have had a field day. The sentence has variously been characterized as ludicrous, Orwellian, punitive, even-handed, just and well-deserved. Everybody has an opinion. Hilton is loved, envied, tolerated and loathed. She represents beauty, frivolity, enterprise and endless self-promotion. She is socially refined and crass at the same time. She is fashion, Miss Manners, base, sassy and belligerent. She is a manga composite of us. And a diversion from more serious and weighty matters.
Supporters of Hilton have started a petition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for a pardon. You can find it on Hilton’s mySpace.com Web page. A counter petition, entitled “Jail Paris Hilton,” demands that the good governor do what is necessary to “ensure” that she serves the full sentence of 45 days, which, incidentally, is not the full sentence Sauer could have meted out Paris Hilton’s violation of probation.
Hilton is appealing the sentence of 45 days as constitutionally impermissible, cruel and unusual, though the judge could have given her 90 days. The appeal is unlikely to be successful. Hilton is the author of her own fate, and she wrote the script for the sentencing. But the judge could still remit a substantial portion of the time, before or after she begins her jail time. The more interesting issue is whether her jailers, who will take responsibility for her housing and welfare, will attempt to give her an early release in defiance of the judge’s order. The judge does not control the operation of the jails. The sheriff does. Because dangerous offenders must be kept in the limited space available, it is the common practice to give an early release to nonviolent misdemeanor and even nonviolent felony offenders, after a few days in jail.
Will the sheriff flex his muscles and defy the judge on the grounds that it is his jail and his responsibility to safeguard the public by housing the more dangerous criminals in lieu of nonviolent, minor offenders? It is anyone’s guess as to what the sheriff will ultimately do. Who would you rather see the sheriff house: a rapist, residential burglar, robber, criminal recidivist or Paris Hilton? There is only limited jail space. We, the public, are simply unwilling to pay for more jails and prisons, and as a consequence more and more offenders receive meaningless and unfulfilled sentences. And that is OK, if that is what we want as a society.
I can only speculate what pressures are being played out behind the scenes. It does not help the appeal that Hilton’s mother, Kathy Hilton, made a “telling” statement immediately following the pronouncement of her daughter’s sentence. Picture a beautifully coiffed and fuming Kathy Hilton in the courtroom being subdued by sheriff’s deputies after she shouted at the prosecutors, “You are pathetic,” (following her daughter’s sentence): “After we spent so much money!” Since that dramatic moment, Paris and her mother have been shopping to assuage their grief. Not even the pale of jail has dampened the joy of spending.
Perhaps the joke is really on us. Just another episode of “Punked,” or maybe the new version for the simple life-“Jail Babes”-starring Paris Hilton sans her glamour accoutrements, sitting in baggy orange overalls on the dark side of bulletproof glass, talking to her interviewer, Nicole Richie, emoting, but planning her eventual triumphal return to her adoring fans. There will be prison style tees, prison chic denim overalls and god only knows what other things will find itself on North Robertson Boulevard. Make no mistake about it. She will be back with a vengeance (if she even goes).