Is this for real?

I had not heard this before I was snooping over at Lowering the Bar today. Apparently there is a drive to petition Governor Schwarzenegger asking that Paris Hilton receive a pardon. So far there are 15,510 signatures.

I had not realized there were that many worshippers at the altar of celebrity who could sign their names.

In case you have not heard, Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in LA county jail for driving wihtout a license and for violating the terms of her probation. She was on probation for September 7 arrest for reckless driving. When she was pulled over, she blew a .08 on the brethalyzer test. In California, that means she legally drunk while driving.

However, as a first time offender, she received the standard probation terms (each county's DA does it a little differently but they all are very close from what I have seen). Fine, treat her like everyone else in the county.

She then was pulled over two more times while on probation and could not manage to fit in the time of her staff's schedule to get herself registered in the court mandated alcohol program. The first happened on January 27 when the CHP pulled her over and gave her a written warning, which she signed, informing her that her license had been suspended and that she was not supposed to drive. That signed acknowledgement was apparently in her car when she was pulled over on February 11 by the LAPD for speeding and driving without her lights on at night.

So what we have here is someone who got probation. Violated the probation. Racked up some more violations, including reckless driving, driving without a license, and she is supposed to just walk on that? I spent Monday afternoon over in the criminal courts doing some appearance work for someone who was in trial. I saw an awful lot of people getting similar sentences for equivalent violations of their probations.

And we are supposed to hope that the Govenor will pardon her because she

1) Doesn't listen to what the court tells her when she is sentenced.

2) Doesn't listen to the officers who inform her that she is violating the law.

3) Doesn't listen to her attorney who should know what the legal situation is.

And to top it all off, she says that the sentence is unfair. Tell that to the guy I was representing who went back into custody on third-hand hearsay because the judge was pissed at his attorney (not me).