Paris Hilton got out of jail almost free.
The hotel heiress, who went to the LA county pokey on June 3 for violating probation in a drunk driving case, has been “reassigned” to serve out her time in her luxurious home.
Hilton was to serve 23 days in jail, but now that she's going home she'll have to serve the full 45 days of her original sentence. She will wear a monitoring bracelet to make sure she doesn't go back out on the town.
When Paris Hilton was first arrested for her probation violation, she fired her publicist because of the way her “poor me” story played in the media.
She may want to do that again.
While the official line from the LA County Sheriff's office is that Hilton was “reassigned” to house arrest due to a “medical condition,” the heiress is catching no sympathy in the blogosphere. CNN.com posted a blog entry from a producer of Showbiz Tonight which opened a floodgate of responses from people who are disgusted with the perceived miscarriage of justice. The common theme on these postings is that rich lawbreakers get a little gentler justice than poor ones.
The very liberal activist Rev. Al Sharpton is out of the box saying Hilton's release smacks of a “double standard” and “economic and racial favoritism.”
On June 3 this writer posted a story on Hilton's entering jail, commending her for taking responsibility and paying the consequences for breaking the law. That story included Hilton's comments that she was “going to do the time” and “going to do it the right way.”
So what happened,
Celebrity website TMZ.com reports that Hilton was refusing to eat the jail food. That may or may not be what led to “medical conditions” requiring her “reassignment” to her house. As one blog posting said, “Don't jails have doctors?” Certainly other inmates serving in jails around the country have “medical conditions.” Does Hilton's treatment at by the LA County Sheriff's department now open the door for them to serve their sentences at home too?
The June 3 CMI article closed by speculating what the press would do with the
Kristen Fyfe is senior writer at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the
