Paris Hilton was whisked from jail Thursday and ordered to spend the remaining 40 days of her probation violation sentence in her well-adorned, 2,700-square-foot lux-itentiary in Hollywood Hills.
But hours later, the judge who sentenced her ordered Hilton back to court Friday to decide whether to return her to jail.
The L.A. County sheriff opted to let Hilton serve her time on house arrest, citing an undisclosed medical condition. Rumors swirled. Some speculated on skin irritation, others that it was irritation with lockup.
Many legal scholars and advocates for equal justice weren’t pleased, and former — and presumably current — inmates weren’t surprised.
“If you don’t have money, you’re just a number,” said John “China Joe” Lofton, 51, who was released from the Cook County Jail about a year ago after serving a year on a battery charges. “In there, if you’ve got something wrong with you they just give you cold tablets and aspirin. I could’ve been stabbed and had a gunshot wound and I still wouldn’t have gotten out.”
Hilton was sentenced May 4 to 45 days in jail for violating her parole on an earlier drunken-driving charge.
“I believe many of the lower-income people that are in the criminal justice system, they have challenges … that are far more critical than anything Paris has,” said Bill Hing, a law professor at the University of California-Davis. “But they would never get this kind of treatment.”
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Personals was compiled by Alan Leo from Tribune news services and staff reports.
