More on Paris

The Paris Hilton saga continues. The latest bit of news is that an analysis of LA County DUI cases by the Los Angeles Times shows that, in fact, Paris may be getting a harsher sentence than other similarly situated defendants:

The Times analyzed 2 million jail releases and found 1,500 cases since July 2002 that — like Hilton's — involved defendants who had been arrested for drunk driving and later sentenced to jail after a probation violation or driving without a license.

Had Hilton left jail for good after four days, her stint behind bars would have been similar to those served by 60% of those inmates.

That, of course, doesn't mean a whole lot, on it's own. It's hard to single out one case and say, based on a simple statistical analysis, the sentence imposed in that case is harsher than usual. Why? Because each case is unique. As Mike over at Crime & Federalism explains, the judge's job is to sentence Paris specifically, not some generic defendant:

If Hilton had been a single mom who lived paycheck-to-paycheck and who was on her way to work when driving on a revoked license, would the judge have given her a lower sentence? I sure as hell would hope so.

If Hilton had been on her way to visit a dying friend in the hospital, would the judge have given her a lighter sentence? Again, we would hope so.

If Hilton had been so poor that going to jail for three weeks might have meant she would be unable to pay her rent and thus would be evicted from her apartment, would the judge have given her a lighter sentence? I think we can all agree on the correct answer.

But Hilton was not driving because she had to.

This is why we give judges discretion as sentencing, at least in some ways, in most cases.

Finally, over at Slate Christopher Hitchens implies that Paris got treated more harshly because of her celebrity and compares the media feeding frenzy about Paris to "whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse." Hyperbole aside, Hitchens misses a huge aspect of Paris's existence in wagging his finger at the media - she asked for it! Publicity has been Paris's life blood for years. I'm fairly certain that if we all just ignored her for a while, she'd disappear into thin air. You can't make a name for yourself as a professional celebrity and then complain when the same public watches you go nuts.