Enteprise Ethics -- June 29, 2007 -- We'll always have Paris

Carlton Vogt's

Enterprise Ethics

Volume 5, No. 5 June 29, 2007

We'll always have Paris

How 'celebrity justice' illustrates fairness -- or the lack thereof

Oh -- my -- God, as the valley girls would say, I can't believe I'm going to actually write about Paris Hilton.

My original intention was to adopt the posture of most other people and pretend that I neither cared about it nor would talk about it -- even as I cared about it enough to talk about it. However, most of the discussion I've been present for does raise the issue of "fairness," something we talked about last time.

Hilton's detractors think there was an element of unfairness in her short-lived release from custody, as well as her special treatment while in custody. Her supporters -- who are in a distinct minority -- feel she was treated unfairly and was singled out for harsher treatment than other people. What's the real story?

Until recently, I remained blissfully unaware of Paris Hilton's very existence. Had you asked me, I would have told you it was a hotel in France. Then, I had an office job for a while, and the women in the office would bring in celebrity gossip magazines and leave them in the break room. Perusing them out of boredom, I became familiar with a host of people I never knew existed.

For the record, I am out of the loop on pop culture and, at the same time, am a celebrity dunce. I have sat and talked at length with famous people without a clue as to who they were -- until later informed by breathless onlookers -- which is probably why the celebrities liked talking to me.

The gossip mags are a special world. For the most part, they refer to celebrities by their first names only, and I imagine you're supposed to know who they are by whom they're paired with. "Oscar and Jeannette are splitsville," we learn, without any clue that either has a last name. I'm sure the cognoscenti know. The mags also spend an inordinate amount of time photographing the clothed bellies of celebrity women for the tell-tale "bump" that indicates a pregnancy. Fascinating.

But I digress. Paris, from what I can determine, is devoid of talent, except that of getting her picture taken -- often. And, of course, she's well known, which in this day and age is enough to make you famous, and therefore even more well known, thereby becoming more famous. That and being wealthy.

But, it was her interaction with the California legal system and the LA County jail system that has raised the current ruckus about fairness. Was Paris treated fairly or not?

Well, at the most basic level, we can look at the law, look at her offense, and determine whether the sentence meted out was the one that the law required. If you take it at that level, then you can say that it was fair.

However, it's never as simple as that. In the enforcement of any law, you need also to look at what is usual. How are these cases otherwise disposed of. If you take that approach, then she probably received a harsher sentence than most, if not all, other people in the same circumstances.

In California, with a prison population ranging from 250 percent to 400 percent of capacity, you have to be a really bad actor -- or a clear and present danger -- to be locked up. In fact, the sheriff who released Paris has said that he has never had a person sent to him for the same offense as she.

So, in that sense, you could argue that her treatment was unfair, since she was treated differently than others in similar circumstances. Now, someone could argue that judges often make sentencing distinctions based upon the person who is committing the crime.

The best response is that, for that to be fair, the identity of the person has to somehow be related to the crime. So, the policeman who deals drugs may receive a harsher sentence, because he has been given a public trust and has violated it. The teacher who molests children might receive a harsher sentence because he was entrusted with children and violated that trust. That's not the case here.

One person patiently explained to me that the judge was trying to "make a point" and to "send a message" to others that this wouldn't be tolerated. If so, and he chose Paris for this harsher treatment because of her wealth and notoriety, then that is patently unfair. It's no different that imposing a harsher sentence on someone because they are black, gay, a woman, Jewish, whatever.

Had the judge decided to "send a message" by imposing a harsh sentence on every tenth person who came before him, that could be seen to be fair, since it would introduce some kind of randomness, rather than singling people out for who they were. However, imposing a harsher sentence on someone because of some personal characteristic unrelated to the crime doesn't seem fair.

At this point, someone may refer back to the original "basic argument," with which I began. If you engage in a certain crime, then you have no argument if the proper penalty is imposed on you. And again, it has some intuitive appeal, but we do consider the idea of selective prosecution, which we perceive as unfair.

Yes, many people on the highway speed. Not all of them are pulled over, and if you are stopped for speeding, you have no viable defense in claiming that "everyone else was doing it too." Again, this defense is unavailable only if the pattern for stopping people is somewhat random -- granting that it will never be perfectly so.

If it can be shown that a certain police officer pulls over only blonde women, black males, or BMWs (perhaps because of some unresolved issues over income disparity), then you have an argument that your prosecution is selective, and therefore unfair. This seems to be the case with Paris Hilton.

So, we can move on to the question of whether Paris Hilton got special treatment from the sheriff in being released. For those who don't know, the current system in California is that once remanded to the jail, the first place you go is to an office that determines whether or not you can be released.

With jails way beyond capacity, sheriffs are compelled to release as many people as they can. The LA County sheriff has explained that he assumed he had the right to release Paris, because that is what is done with people whose "crimes" don't rise to a certain level. When you're trying to decide whether you let the armed robber out or the child molester, traffic violations come pretty far down on the scale.

I had a neighbor, recently deceased, who had a rap sheet longer than your arm, including several probation violations. The charges were for felonies far more serious than what Paris was charged with. He would routinely be picked up on a violation of probation, taken to court, and remanded to the county jail. He would be back home the same day, before the neighborhood grapevine had completed the task of informing everyone of his latest arrest. This was much to the chagrin of neighbors who weren't keen on living near a convicted felon.

Someone else patiently pointed out to me that the judge had written very specific instruction on how Paris was to be treated. That may be true, but there are two inconvenient facts. First, judges are often very specific about sentencing, and sheriffs still have wide latitude in who goes and who stays.

Second, the fact the judge made such specific comments indicates that he knew his sentence was way outside the norm for similar cases, leading to the conclusion that Paris was being treated differently based solely on who she was -- and again raising the specter of unfairness.

Another issue, is the effect of her presence on the jail. With 20,000 inmates, some 2,000 of whom are mentally ill, the sheriff is under tremendous pressure simply to keep a ticking bomb from exploding. Putting Paris in the general population would create chaos. Putting her in seclusion with special treatment now draws limited resources away from more pressing duties -- and again poses a threat to the overall prison population and the general public.

So here, as with the sentencing, Paris was treated differently simply because of who she was. However, in this case, unlike the sentencing, her notoriety was directly linked to the threat her presence posed to good order within the jail -- and the safety of prisoners and guards alike.

An interesting side note, for those who don't live in Southern California, is that the county attorney, who argued for jail time for Paris, has a small army of skeletons in his own closet. It turns out his wife had been driving on a suspended license and had an outstanding warrant. He let her drive his county vehicle -- without a valid license. She smashed the car, and he had it repaired at county expense. And it turns out he had been driving a personal vehicle without insurance. Neither he nor his wife will be sent to jail -- and rightly so.

So, the bottom line on fairness is that I can understand the judge's frustration at Paris' behavior, but she is only the tip of the scofflaw iceberg. If Californians only knew how many people were on the road with no license, no registration, no insurance, and a pocketful of outstanding warrants, they would all be hiding under the bed instead of on the roads.

However, if the judge wanted to "send a message," there are fairer ways of doing it, and there are ways that probably send a better message. The message this judge sent is that if you are a rich person who gets their picture in the paper a lot, you will get a harsh sentence. That doesn't say much to the great number of people indulging in the same behavior and who manage to remain fairly anonymous.

It would be much better, and much fairer, to say that the harsh sentences are there, and that everyone who scoffs at the law has an equal chance of having the hammer come down on them, whether or not they ever get their picture in the paper.