Justice is a commodity – just ask Paris

Any resident of the UK or USA who has recently fallen foul of an unscrupulous Automated Billing Agency (formerly known as corporate service providers) might be forgiven for thinking that no justice remains in this world. If you yourself have recently attempted legal action over anything more than a parking fine or a disputed bill, you will realize that the law has become the domain of the wealthy. People may claim, or even write dreadful things about you, calling you a liar, a thief, or even alleging that you are a convicted sex offender, but that’s only because they don’t believe that you can afford to do anything about it. Mud sticks - unless of course your expensive lawyer has a power hose to hand, and most of us will realize that sticks and stones may break your bones but at least they are less damaging in the long-term than a campaign of personal defamation.

Celebrities suing over trivial matters of reputation or honor have become part of our daily entertainment, whether it be Sean Connery suing a golf club for refusing to refund his membership after introducing new members with his name, Hollywood actress Kate Hudson successfully suing over an article which merely implied that she had an eating disorder, or England football star Ashley Cole taking a newspaper to court over rumors that he may have been bisexual. Personally I wish that a major newspaper or magazine would say something mildly derogatory about me so that I can be on better terms with my bank manager. May be just a little story about a wild sex orgy, or a million dollar tax evasion to spice up my otherwise dull reputation and fill my bank account… alas if only I was important and wealthy enough to defame in a national newspaper. Most of us find that our reputations have been shot down in flames before we even make it into the antechamber of society.

So with all the column inches and busy blogs, it might seem prudent to ask what socially acceptable criminal behavior currently is. Here is a brief top five run-down of criminal offences presently subject to ‘flexible interpretation based upon social class’:

(1) Performing sexual antics on a widely released home video is not deemed to be socially unacceptable or publicly indecent if it was (a) carefully leaked, (b) the woman is a society sex kitten or leading actress and/or model, and, (c) the participating celebrities make appropriate noises about legal action to recover their widely circulated video.

(2) Sex with minors (children under the age of 16 for those who are the owners of a fashion house or a modeling agency) is punishable by life imprisonment, public humiliation and ostracism, unless of course you are a top fashion designer, a member of the aristocracy, or a leading Belgian official.

(3) Theft is against the law, and taking an apple from another’s tree, downloading a music file without paying, or the act of copying a video is a vile, dishonest and morally reprehensible activity. However, insider trading, massaging accounts, using ghostwriters to fulfill an author’s contract, or writing off a social business luncheon against company finances is all part of routine society life.

(4) Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol constitutes the reckless endangerment of life and property, which may result in the loss of license and liberty, unless of course it is a necessary part of maintaining an ‘it’ girl image within Ascot or Hollywood.

(5) Non-consensual sex is defined as rape carrying a 12-20 year sentence, unless of course you are a leading celebrity, member of a royal family, or a PPI (Person of Power & Influence).

As usual the media regularly publishes stories of legal bias and flexible interpretation to keep us amused. In a recent and noteworthy case, an Old Bailey judge praised a gambler for beating her gambling addiction. Judge Jeremy Roberts QC, who owns a couple of horses of his own, sympathized with defendant Ms. Sharna Baker after she had returned to court earlier this year following ‘successful’ rehabilitation from a gambling ‘addiction’ in which she stole £460,000 from her merchant bank. The 27 year old Ms. Baker was an accounts clerk in the City of London, and had spent £90,000 of her own money before ‘dishonestly obtaining’ almost a million dollars in 127 separate transactions over a five month period.

After Ms. Baker had admitted to no fewer than nine separate charges of ‘dishonestly obtaining money transfers by deception’, she was electronically tagged and ordered to attend Gamblers Anonymous for two years. However, her treatment program was dropped after only a year for good behavior, noted a proud Judge Roberts, who told her that it was ‘nice to see that something had gone right’. Judge Roberts added that he had maintained ‘reservations for a long time about internet betting’ and in his summing up stated that online gambling "becomes a trap - I own two horses and I don't know when they are going to win".

The judge’s decision was not apparently swayed by the fact that Ms. Baker had three prior convictions for dishonesty. In 2006 Judge Peter Beaumont had previously suspended her one year jail sentence for two years after deciding that she had in fact offended not because of a ‘dishonest’ nature, but because she had a disease. This must come as scant consolation to Leandro Andrade, a California drug addict who in 1996 was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison for shoplifting videotapes worth $150 after two previous felony convictions. Clearly an addiction to gambling is an expensive and terrible disease requiring millions in court costs, gambling debts and sympathetic rehabilitation to cure, whilst a chemical drug addiction is an inherited deficiency of character which is incurable and treatable only by life imprisonment or execution. My, how expensive our middle classes are to maintain...

Some felt that Leandro Andrade's punishment, which became mandatory under California’s infamous 1994 ‘three strikes and you're out' law, to be so disproportionate to his crime that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Mr. Andrade is not alone however, as some 57% of the 7,000 people presently serving sentences under this California law were convicted of non-violent third felonies, including 650 convictions of drug possession and 340 of theft.

In another famous ‘three strikes’ case, a Mr.Ewing was spotted by a clerk at a professional golf shop in California walking stiff-legged from the store to the parking lot in March of 2000. Police summoned to the scene discovered that Mr.Ewing had left the shop with three Calloway golf clubs worth over $400 stuffed into a leg of his trousers. The presiding judge, Justice John Paul Stevens, himself an avid golfer, enquired of Mr.Ewing's attorney as to how his client had managed to stow three clubs away into his trousers, asking ‘Was he a very tall man, or were these irons?’ For the golfers present in the court room, this was an apparently hilarious joke, but some sympathy is perhaps due to Mr. Ewing who has AIDS and will not be eligible for parole until 2025. Perhaps he was only trying to join the judge’s golf club and embezzle his employers by spending long hours on the golf course whilst being paid.

The three strikes rule which effectively condemned Ewing & Andrade to life behind bars came into force in 1994 after a political bidding war to appear to be the toughest on crime. There have however been recent attempts to repeal the Three Strikes legislation on the grounds that it is perverse, disproportionate, and undeniably insane. One such attempted repeal, named Proposition 66, was narrowly rejected and sought to eliminate several ‘minor non-violent’ crimes from the Three Strikes ruling. In the campaign against Proposition 66, backed by Mr. Schwarzenegger himself, there was a public appeal for details of any known abuses of the legislation. It is claimed that no one came forward, although they were probably frightened that their careers and social futures would be terminated.

On a lighter note, the adoring acolytes of Paris Hilton have recently petitioned Mr. Schwarzenegger, better known in Paris as ‘Arnie’, for a pardon on the grounds that ‘she provides hope for young people all over the US and the world… [and] provides beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives’. Perhaps this a fair and balanced claim for a leading suburban socialite who really did not know that there were cameras in the room when she starred in her own $million porn production ‘One Night in Paris’ (the one in the hotel room with the lights on…), and was apparently unaware that driving with a suspended license or under the influence of drugs or alcohol was legally and morally wrong. Well I suppose that wealthy 26 year old society heiresses are allowed an extended childhood...

Paris subsequently appealed to fans to sign her online petition to governor Schwarzenegger to commute her 45-day sentence for her ‘honest mistake’ of driving whilst disqualified. For those who have not kept up with the LA party scene, Ms .Hilton’s license was suspended in 2006 for 36 months after driving her Bentley along Sunset Boulevard while intoxicated. Paris duly informed the judge that she was unaware that this meant she was unable to drive as she never read her own mail, as she had, ‘people who did that for her’.

Ms. Hilton felt her sentence to be ‘cruel and unwarranted’, and as a protest against the heinous decision has appeared on the cover of a leading fashion magazine wearing a prison outfit while running away from models dressed as policemen. Stirring and morally uplifting stuff. In an ironic co-incidence, Paris was released from jail after only a few days to serve out the remainder of her sentence in her luxury Los Angeles mansion. Apparently her resistance broke after only a few days of incarceration where she was forced to endure takeaway meals and an unfashionable orange jump suit, and the sheriff found himself unable to treat her ‘rapidly worsening medical condition’.

A Los Angeles judge however insisted that she attend a courtroom hearing rather than listen in from the comfort of her mansion by telephone. After resentencing, Paris was taken screaming, sobbing and shouting (the three dreaded Society ‘S’s) from court after being told to return to jail to serve out the remainder of her sentence. Ms. Hilton was required to spend a few days at a treatment centre for medical and psychiatric examination to determine which jail she will be sent to, and indeed whether being a spoiled brat is now officially classified as a medical condition. LA county sheriff Lee Baca defended his earlier decision to release Paris Hilton on medical grounds, stating that she had some severe psychological problems. Yes Sheriff Baca, she is certifiably insane, as are most of those in high society. Fortunately (for them), they inhabit the rarified atmosphere of the Mile High Club, far above and beyond the rule of common law…