Friday, June 08, 2007

Paris Hilton Goes Free

I think America has been done a great injustice. I think there was a collective gasp when Paris Hilton went home after only three days in Jail. I think that every law enforcement officer, police chief, prosecutor, and presiding Judge, in our great United States is grinding their teeth…right about now knowing that money can buy you freedom, especially in California. The mere fact that Paris Hilton is being allowed to serve her sentence under house arrest, because of medical reasons, is an injustice to every person who has suffered and is suffering behind bars with far more serious ailments (remember Paris is going home and not to the hospital). I sat stunned watching CNN as the anorexic princess was brought home to her castle to wear an ankle bracelet and serve out her time. Let’s recap shall we? Paris missed her court date not once, but twice, lied and blamed it on her publisher, cried like a 3 year old because of the sentence given, she showed up to jail early, became ill (supposedly) and then went home after serving three days on a 90 day, reduced to 45 days, reduced to 23 days, to her lap of luxury.

The Californian legal system has a broken cog. I feel this cog was obliterated by the famous, the greedy and the influential. In my opinion celebrities have an access road around the Californian legal system and they know how to exploit it. There is no way is a purple-colored hell that you the average citizens would be able to do what Paris has done. In my home state of Alabama if we were pulled over and the officer found out we had a failure to appear warrant, we would have been arrested, held to our court date, fined, sentenced, and thrown summarily into our local jail.

As a new Paramedic I once responded to a jail where a prisoner was violently ill. He was so sick that if on the outside we would run lights and siren to the hospital. But the jailers were indifferent almost casual about this particular prisoner’s plight. Their exact words were, “He is still not going home.” There response stunned me. But after years of having worked on the streets I know that prisoners have rights but they are still prisoners. They still have to pay their dues. In my opinion Paris was never a prisoner…stay tuned.


~Vale~