Letters to the Editor
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absolute and perverse amorality
"But mostly, I'll miss the show's absolute and perverse amorality." By Gary Kamiya (in the current article "Our Favorite Murderer".
That's exactly what makes the Hilton saga so freak'in engaging. Fiction reads better than real life, but real life is much more creepy than fiction can even pretend to be.
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Our little Marie Antoinette. But is her punishment just?
Hilton committed a serious crime, one that endangered lives. And she should be punished with far more than five days of confinement. (And not home confinement--no ankle bracelets, please.)
But what about our draconian justice system?
Why couldn’t she take any books to her cell? A cell in which she was to spend 23 hours per day alone? In Denmark, even serious offenders get TV in their cells. There, authorities and criminals find confinement itself, even if the inmate gets to spend some time watching TV or reading, to be as effective a deterrent to future crimes as harsher measures.
Hilton would've had plenty of time to ponder her crime, even if she'd had some books on hand.
The article by Havrilesky and Traister suggests how difficult it is to justly punish someone when the justice system is too harsh. A prominent journalist--maybe Havrilesky or Traister?--needs to look at this issue more closely.
I wonder what Hilton would have read in her cell, had she been allowed. The Bible? She did have a copy in hand in a recent photograph, taken just after she’d been convicted.
(By the way, Hilton's Bible, along with our justice system, is another sign of this country’s backwardness. Hilton's just one example of an American type: the priveleged hedonist who, in times of personal crisis only, turns to the spotty wisdom of the Bible.)
And, concerning Hilton's wild-girl image: So much for the socialite who said, "I'm ready to face my sentence."
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Torture is relative, I guess.
Not growing up in the US, I guess I was taught that we don't criminalize our citizens solely for political gain, nor jail people to make political points and placate a mob. We certainly don't put vulnerable, young women in solitary confinement for minor parole violations on minor regulatory infractions in the first place. You must all be proud to be Americans!
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Hmm ... Could Harry Seldon be to Paris Hilton ...
What John Hinckley was to Jodie Foster?
Repeat after me, boys and girls ...
President Cheney.
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re: KYjurisdoctor
Oh dear, you pushed one of my buttons. I live in Memphis, where we got hourly media updates on Mary Winkler.
The problem with Mary's trial was that people are very credulous. She presented a case that she had been abused and people bought it, despite an earlier confession in which she stated that her husband had never abused her and she killed him because he got mad at her for falling asleep during a movie. The clincher was a pair of clear plastic platform shoes which she claimed her husband made her wear during sex. Because, you know, any man who likes kinky sex deserves to be shot in the back while he sleeps. The fact that she killed him the day before the bank was going to contact him and tell him his wife had blown their entire savings on a Nigerian scam was somehow less important than a claim of abuse which contradicted her own testimony and was substantiated by zero witnesses.
On the other hand, at least Tennessee requires mandatory jail time for drunk driving.
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re: Harry Seldon
So... where do you put parole violators, in whatever country you're from? Presumably when someone violates parole, the courts in your country do SOMETHING.
This "vulnerable young woman" is being put in solitary not as an extra punishment, but as a special concession.
By the way, I agree with whoever wrote about the books. Fine world we live in, where TV is allowed in prison and books aren't.
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Re: Gwool
I could personally care less about Paris Hilton one way or the other. What is sad is torturing a girl by releasing her from solitary confinement, and then tossing her back in jail. But then again, you live in a country where they send 17 year old boys to jail for 10 years for having consensual initiated by the 15 year old girl. Americans typically like to blame the messenger than dealing with the message that your justice seem is a joke.
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Want Some Chewing Gum, Harry?
It might help you pop your ears on that high horse of yours.
Our justice system has its warts, but I will still put it in the top tier around the world. People do not disappear from it. People receive trials. People remain innocent until proven guilty. I doubt we'll have to worry about a mass grave somewhere.
Where you from, sport? From what societal ooze have you slithered?
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???????
What I don’t understand is why there is such vehemence toward Paris Hilton from people that claim to care so little about her? If you want to avoid Paris Hilton don’t read tabloids, watch Entertainment Tonight or CNN.
Really is that so freaking hard?
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Poor Lee Baca, he should resign in protest
People in this country cannot do math. You cannot lock up more people than the jail can hold. You cannot make everyone serve a full sentence when the jail doesn't have room.
All of this is getting lost in the Paris Group Hate.
The New York Times is finally bringing up the subject.
I guess they got tired of libeling Lee Baca without giving him at least a token chance to explain himself.
He should just quit that job and let his replacement worry about how to satisfy a rabidly vindictive public and obey federal court orders prohibiting overcrowding at the same time.
It's time to burden some other poor sucker with that essentially hopeless task!!!
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Paris Hilton Jail Obsession
Sheriff Baca is reponsible for running one of the largest jails in the world. Legislators require lengthier sentences, but do not provide the funds to provide jail space for the large numbers of offenders.
Paris Hilton was guilty of a probation violation of a non-violent misdemeanor. The Sheriff must obey a federal injunction limiting the number of inmates in the L.A. County Jail.
A psychiatrist and two psychologists reported to the Sheriff that Hilton was suffering serous mental disorders. One time middle class or upper class offenders such as Paris Hilton are the highest suicide risks during their short incarceration times.
The Judge has been on the bench for 28 years. Yet he is limited to hearing traffic arraignments and probation violation on traffic sentences. The City Attorney who wants higher office were offended. So the Judge and City Attorney issue press releases and supplanted the Sheriff in running the Jail.
When will the American public's lust to see their fellow citizens imprisoned cease?
Reporters brought the courthouse to a stand still and the Hilton matter dominated the news. On this same day, President Bush was being ostracized in the Group of Eight Summitt. The immigration compromise bill was unraveling in the United States Senate. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was forced into retirement rather than face a hostile Senate confirmation. The every increasing deaths of American soldiers in Iraq continued with another bad day.
But the Paris Hilton story dominated the space in Salon, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the news networks.
Al Gore has it right. This is not how a democracy should be functioning.