(no subject)

[fj]

Tonight I drove through East of Downtown over 7th street to the entry of the 5 I take to Glendale, to get to the Whole Foods and get my shopping for the coming week over with. This means driving right through Skid Row to Alameda and then through some very low-cost housing with boarded- and barred-up liquor stores on the ground floor. And I think it was across from the bus station that I drove by a man, sitting on steps of some brick house, rocking back and forth, slapping his head and chest with his hands in a repetitive, mechanical, yet uncontrollable-seeming, motion.

I don't know enough to distinguish withdrawal from untreated Parkinsons from mental illness in the second that I drove by. I think I do know enough to recognize this person needed to be in a psychiatric ward. Of which one bed in jail is being taken up by a girl who is there, longer than most people would be for the same offense, because the world around her basically is so outraged she had it too easy in her life and she has become a pawn between feuding government institutions jerking her around at their whim.

Oh, there's much to be outraged about in LA tonight. Just like every night.

Comments

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I believe her attorney that her sentence is out of line. Other people who were convicted of driving on a suspended license after prior DUI convictions got 90-day sentences.

[jered]

Agreed -- I'm not sure it's fair to claim her sentence is out of line at all. Wasn't this her third incident of driving without a license?

Also, as someone pointed out at dinner last night, many people to violate their license suspension do so out of necessity. Ms. Hilton could afford a chauffeur to take her anywhere at any time and not even notice the impact on her account interest statement. What she was doing was willful disregard for the law, which justifies harsh punishment.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Thirded. Also, people with far worse medical conditions fail to get a free pass.

[cubdaddy.livejournal.com]

Haunting observation, FJ.

[nipper-dawg.livejournal.com]

One girl who has repeatedly said that she should be treated differntly because she is a "celibrity" One girl who has snubbed the law. One girl who has a good chance of ending up like all the other blond "celebrities".
i disagree that she is being treated differntly then other people. She may think she shbould get a free ride becuase of grandpas money, because she has not talent but can sell herself well.
There have been a few interviews with potential roomates in the papers here. Guess what they are in for, DWI. Some are in for 90 days, some for a year.
If she was treated like you seem to feel she would be, then what happens when she kills someone from DWI because she feels she is above the law.
Personally i do disagree with one thing. It was the sheriff who screwed this one up, not her, so her time in jail should not have been extented to the full 45 days.
If she was not Paris Hilton, just some white middle class girl having a hard time in jail, no one in the system would have cut her a break. The world is NOT outraged causde she has had a easy life, the world is outraged that she and her mother think they are better then everyone else is and deserve to live by a diffeernt set of rules, and the world is sick and tired of it.

[fj.livejournal.com]

One girl who has repeatedly said that she should be treated differntly

Just like every lawyer does for a client after a guilty conviction.

just some white middle class girl having a hard time in jail, no one in the system would have cut her a break

People get turned away around here every day for overcrowding.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough to distinguish withdrawal from untreated Parkinsons from mental illness in the second that I drove by. I think I do know enough to recognize this person needed to be in a psychiatric ward. Of which one bed in jail is being taken up by [Paris Hilton].

comments about the appropriateness or otherwise of Ms Hilton's sentence aside (which sentence, incidentally, is for parole violations, driving without a licence, NOT directly for driving while intoxicated):

a] someone with Parkinson's does NOT need to be in a psychiatric ward. It's no a psychiatric condition.

b] I don't see your equation of one bed in a psychiatric ward (which might be occupied by the troubled man you saw from your car window) on the one hand, and a bed in a jail cell (one of which was occupied by Ms Hilton) on the other. Psychiatric hospitals and jails are different institutions, with different purposes.

[fj.livejournal.com]

It's all tax money, bub.

[borderlandsbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, puhleeze! She got three warnings; she disregarded them; she should go to jail.

[fj.livejournal.com]

She did. I still don't see a purpose to what happened yesterday.

As Cartman would put it, "Respect my authoriteh!"

[bigmacbear]

I think the purpose of what happened yesterday was to assert the authority of the judge in the case, over Ms. Hilton but more importantly over the sheriff who released her.

In sentencing the judge specifically ordered that she not be placed on home confinement, but that she go to jail like anyone else. So the sheriff, in releasing her without the permission of the judge, was in essence disobeying a court order. Ms. Hilton just happened to be caught in the crossfire, as it were.

I'd be curious to see if any further proceedings are brought against the sheriff. I suspect those won't be as publicized because they don't have the drama of screaming celebrities.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I went to an appallingly godawful high school graduation ceremony, where among other things the principal was going on and on about Paris Hilton and how he didn't think she would have made a very good student at their school.