Paris Hilton dragged back into court

Paris Hilton will later today appear before the judge who sentenced her to 23 days' jail for violating probation on a drink-drive rap at a hearing to decide whether she should indeed be allowed to do the remainder of her sentence under house arrest. Hilton was released yesterday from Century Regional Detention Centre in Lynwood …

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets Hope...

Lets hope he sends her right back to jail, where she should be.

[amanfromMars]

Pussy footing around the System.

What a "highly-talented" wimp.....springs to mind as does the answer in the question ..And what first attracted you to the heiress, Paris Hilton?

Is the Real Life delivered with nary a whimper, by the Justice System to those with less than a fistful of dollars, not to her Liking?

Not Paris's fault, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick her privelidged ass back in......

I can only assume that the medical staff that examined her and assessed her mental state were not the same staff that would have examined any other inmates....

It screams not only of double standards but also of possible corruption as, to be honest, it seems that Paris' lawyer has sabre-rattled her ass outta there and that's just plain wrong......

Stick her back in and if she goes suicidal, which I highly suspect is the reason for her release, then treat her like the other inmates and put her on suicide watch. But I doubt that even that vacuous waste of space would do herself in and in reality who would really kill themselves when they've only got 22 days to serve....

[Anonymous Coward]

new anti-terror laws

Lets hope that Jon Reid brings in some specific rules for celebrities with his anti-terror proposals so that they can enjoy the same 'above the law' status over here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid!

"This early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favouritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of colour."

Now thats Racist... Race has nothing to do with it, or being poor. Being mega rich -Black White or whatever - makes the diffrence.

"Sentencing Paris to jail for an extended period of time was an example of a celebrity being treated more harshly than an average person."

23 days for DUI and without a licence. Seems quight soft to me...

I just hope that justice will be done. And as for "House arrest" being within 3000 feet of her house? Thats a long way. Shawly House arrest should meen just that, especaly for someone with a huge mansion.

[Name]

The highly-talented heiress

Highly-talented?

Like your typical modern celebrity who is famous for being famous I can't say I have noticed she has a talent for anything (shopping maybe)?

[Brian]

Is there a tech link here?

I really couldn't care less whether Paris Hilton lives or dies. If I heard that she was shivved in prison, I would only cluck at the violence inherent in the penal system. Why are we wasting time, and valuable El Reg space on this moronic twat?

[Ned Fowden]

American Justice

there's one thing you can always count on with american justice and that is what it is primarily famous for, justice favours the rich over the poor.

Paris should remain in prison for her entire sentence, but as we all know, money is God in America

[James]

US legal system a laughing stock

The US legal system seems to have reached new lows of stupidity with this case. Treating celebrities differently sends two very destructive messages:

1. Celebs, do what you like and we might give you a smack on the wrist. Cry a bit and we'll send you home.

2. Ordinary people have their (probably already tattered) belief in justice further eroded.

She broke the law, she should suffer the same penalty as the rest of us would. If it's really that bad for her then perhaps it might actually be a deterrent and therefore an effective punishment. 2000-3000 feet from her pad is hardly house arrest, she has a clear couple of square kilometers she can roam with that....

[Hein Kruger]

throw away the key too

"Lets hope he sends her right back to jail, where she should be."

agreed, and lets also hope someone then "loses" the key...

[sue]

Unspecified Medical Blah.....

Much as I honestly hope that Ms. Hilton isn't seriously ill, this smacks of celebrity pampering and money being thrown about willy-nilly.

Plenty of inmates in the US and even over here get seriously ill, from acute depression to cancer and allsorts, yet they are not released and continue to serve their sentences.

Isn't a single cell on a celebrity wing enough concession as it is? C'mon girl....you broke the law, now take the punishment in good grace. I wonder if she'll adorn her ankle-tag with sparklies?

[Luke Wells]

Lets hope they get it right this time..

Surely they must be aware that releasing someone so early in such a high profile case is going to cause huge uproar.

If she can be released after only 3 days and confined to a luxury mansion then why can't everyone else? What sort of message is this sending to criminals, or even Paris herself? After a few days "resting" in a house that 99.9% of the worlds population could only dream of owning, she will be fighting fit and ready to get straight back behind the wheel of a car, vodka bottle in hand.

What will happen next time? maybe 6 days for a repeat repeat offence?

[Klaus]

Re: Let's Hope

Hear, Hear!

[John Stag]

"for an extended period of time..."

>"an extended period of time..."

Um... It's a couple of weeks... in a special "celebrity" cell where she won't be bothered by the other inmates.

>"an example of a celebrity being treated more harshly than an average person."

And letting her get away with it would be....what...?

[Chris Miller]

If you can't do the time ...

... don't do the crime!

[Daniel]

Working Street Bum

She must get pretty cold at night having to stay 2000-3000 feet from her pad, If i was the judge i would have at least allowed her inside.

[Gavin]

mmm prison

no don't lock me up in a celeb jail out of harms way of others section away and in comfort oh and to spend the rest of my sentence in a mansion unbearable please let me go.

they should not only send her to prison but they should also treat her no differently than any other prisoner.

[Chris Beauchamp]

If I may make a suggestion...

... Perhaps a sentence of 6 months (or even a year) of absolutely no publicity, no media coverage, nobody asking for even her autograph.

Think of the benefits for the rest of us too!

[Mark]

Too Harsh

C'mon chaps and ladies,

You're all being too harsh on poor Paris Stilton.

Yes she did commit a crime but she does have a very compact arse, and a mental age of about 3. She probably doesn't fully understand what's going on and also isn't it illegal to send a minor to prison?

If she were put into a proper prison wing then I doubt she'd be able to protect herself from the onslaught of womenly loving bound to erm, come her way. I dread to think of her dropping her soap in the showers, bending down amongst the 'women of the pie'.... and all without a video camera. It'd be a missed opportunity.

Three cheers for Ms Hilton! She fought the law, and the law, erm, lost. Back to photoshop and loveinawomensprison.com....

[Matt Milford]

More appropriate?

"house arrest was a more appropriate sentence for a celebrity"

Yeah, but there's shit to do in your own house. Isn't this like sending a child to their room when their toys are in there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Medical Reasons?

Reasons, plural? What could they possibly be?

That she didn't like doing the time that goes with her crime?

The overalls made her look fat/cheap/like a criminal?

She missed her dealer?

Seriously though, why is this nonsense being reported by as mighty an IT organ as The Register?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harsher Punishment Probably Better

Giving the talentless moron a harsher sentance would probably give off better signals.

Some people look up to these people so when they do wrong they should be punished fairly. If only the yanks realised just how badly this is reflecting on them! The US Justice System is a farce and always will be. Cash is King!

[Andrew Moore]

House arrest...

Yes, but we get to select the house. I suggest somewhere nice in South Central LA or a shanty town in South Africa.

[Law]

OMG

Oh my god... US needs to wake up!! I bet almost all female inmates cry everyday in their first weeks, never mind days!! And they go to real prisons - not the "celebrity" quarter.

They should throw her back in, with a few extra weeks and this time in the REAL jail. She will soon stop crying... and probably DUI too! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Paris Hilton dragged back into court

Dragged? Back on the booze already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Needs this sort of stuff

Paris needs this controversy. 23 days in jail is long from the publicity point of view - it's hard to stay in the news for 3 weeks in jail with little happening, where's the story?

But if you get released from jail after a short while, then put back in, then x,y,z other happenings then the publicity bandwagon can keep rolling on and people won't forget about her (since there's not much worth remembering her by, it's important to keep reminding everyone that this person is supposed to be famous).

[Dai Kiwi]

One Rule For All

If Paris hadn't been the celeb and had done what she did, nobody would have thought twice about the sentence. In fact most of us would have called it pretty lenient.

It is not unreasonable. Any questions about her mental stability in relation to serving the sentence only highlight her state of mind generally - i.e. f*cked up as we all know.

[Tom]

I wonder if

she'd find it easier to stay in the pokey if she had a contract with MTV to do another Reel Life type thing?

[bambi]

sickening

Its things like this that kick democracy and justice in the nads.... and they wonder why billions of people think Western morales are corrupt....

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor wee brat

Been there done that. Prison ain't a nice place to be but I got some news for that poor spoilt little brat - it ain't supposed to be a nice place. Most of the rest of us who have been in for whatever crime, whether a long sentence or an "overnighter" (anything under 1yr where I come from) didn't have a shrink to call up and rescue us on some flimsy "mental health problems" or other excuse. As was pointed out by Sue, others with medical conditions still have to stay inside, at least until close to the end of their sentence in some circumstances.

For every hour of the courts time she has wasted through this, she should get another week. And if this is not her first DUI, it really should be treated more like an attempted murder or something worse still. IME, repeat DUI should at the very least face 10+yrs. Life without parole sounds nice...

[Chris Sharp]

Celebrity Prison

Curious that everyone thinks this "celebrity prison" is really nice and cushy, has anybody been? My experience with people who have been to prison (even for only a few days) is that the loss of freedom alone is a harsh punishment not to be taken lightly

Also, I'm still looking for evidence of corruption, whenever somebody famous gets a short jail sentence everybody cries out that there is one rule for the rich and another for the poor, loads of poor people get reduced sentences all the time, especially in the States where space in the jails is notoriously low, can we wait until we get some facts please?

[Demian Phillips]

harsh?

AFAIK in California (Each state has it's own DUI laws), any "normal" person when caught DUI with no license is probably looking at much more jail time and a lot of other punishment.

Look here http://www.kandblaw.com/penalty_chart.html and see what non celebs get.

[preethi]

2+1=5 How?????

I have spent half the day trying to add up how she has been holed up for 5 days

Need help!!!!!!

I am getting depressed..............

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf?

When i was 15 i violated my court supervision (a seemingly lesser punishment than probation) by missing two days of school. I was sentanced to 30 days in jail and my supervision changed to probation and was reset for another years worth of time. Durring the time i was jailed, i was involved in a fight and denied medical attention for broken ribs. Last i saw on the news, her medical condition was supposedly a rash. Im sure her daddy had nothing to do with this.

[Mike Moyle]

While I agree...

...that if Ms Hilton is too ill to remain in the "regular" population of Celebrity Jail that she should spend her remaining time in isolation in a locked hospital room under 24-hour guard - for the sake of her health and to minimize any threat to the health of the rest of the prison population...

...Nonetheless, it fascinates me how every news article in the Reg that deals with Ms Hilton (or many of the other, admitted, absurdities that leak from the United States' legal system) causes the inevitable Geek Chorus to walk onstage to chant, "Well, that just shows how stupid/ignorant/arrogant those stupid/ignorant/arrogant Americans are!"

Please, people - can we get real, here?

United States population: 301,000,000 (approx.)

United Kingdom population: 61,000,000 (approx.)

So there are some five times as many people in the US as in the UK. What this implies is that there are, on average, five times as many people doing stupid things in the US as in tha UK. Of COURSE you will hear about five times as many stupid legal decisions coming from US courts as from British ones!

...Or is the Chorus's assumption that half of the British populace ISN'T, by definition, dumber than average?

No, the reason *MUST* be because the Americans are more stupid/ignorant/arrogant than anyone else because, after all, in all of world history there have never been any cases of "If I'm rich ("well-born"/Norman/etc.) I can do what I want," except in the U.S., right?

This, therefore, is clear evidence that the French author, Anatile France, must have traveled extensively in the U.S, since he could have seen nothing in Europe to inspire him to write: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Right?

[Cliff]

Oh, go on then, my 2p...

A mildly interesting point of (UK) law here- you are sent to prison AS punishment, not FOR punishment. When you are no longer being punished, you are allowed to not be in prison any more - they let you go home. If your home has screaming kids and you have no money to pay bills, etc, 40 days with no respite would be a hard punishment.

But. 40 days in a bloody great mansion where you're allowed out upto a mile, meaning you can still get your vapid self into the papers on a 'poor me' slate. 40 days of drinking, swimming, all your favourite pharamcuticals, watching movies, screwing and hanging out with friends sounds rather like a free pardon. Like Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan King, etc, break the law, do chokey, learn your lesson, don't do it again (although one don't see much repentance from Archer or everybody's cynical paedophile, King, admittedly)

[Brad Murray]

3000 feet is going to work out fine

That's 3000 feet from the transceiver that communicates with her bracelet/anklet/whatever -- not 3000 feet from her home. I'd venture to guess that means she can't completely tour her own home let alone leave it.

[Dillon Pyron]

Getting sentenced?

Three years ago, I was on a jury that sentenced a man who was DUI to 30 days for a first offense. Driving with a suspended license, first offense, is punishable by a fine and suspension of the license for an additional year.

If she had been convicted of a first offense DUI (not clear on that, I steer clear of the tabloids and "celebrity" press), she would have gotten more.

Maybe she can get the governor to pardon her.

[kain preacher]

she's back

OK rhe judge threw her ass back to jail.

The judge is slaming the sheriff and so is the LA city attoreny.

SHe was convicted of less charge, but still counts as prior for DUI

[Anonymous Coward]

So, where are the protests about George Michael?

Meanwhile, see <http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6733411.stm>. The only man to be publicly certified as a Repetitive Stain Sufferer (no, the missing "r" is intentional) was give 100 hours community service and walked out of court laughing, calling the process a farce. If it's about the result I'd agree.

This is NOT someone who is clueless, was found to be out of his skull on a mix of canabis, GBH and "therapeutic" drugs- and admitted, on top of that, that he was tired. So well and truly unfit to drive, and knowingly so.

Not a peep from any protesters?

[Kevin Crisp]

Back she goes

Back she goes - for the full 45 days - cool - the judge had some sense - and him an American and all.

Right - now I can enjoy my Friday night pint.