About 3:30 this afternoon, I knocked off work early. Just as I pulled onto the street out of the parking garage under the building were my office is located, my cell phone rang. I quickly placed it in the hands-free docking station, then answered.
“Tom! It’s Bentley, over at the Federal and State Justice Project!”
“Ah yes,” I thought to myself, “the FSJP – another one of those organizations named so as to completely mislead the public.” Actually, the last thing the Federal and State Justice Project wants is equal protection under federal and state laws. Instead, it’s an organization promoting an agenda of favoritism for rich people. One good thing I will say about the FSJP is that they pay their bills promptly and in full. I can’t think of anything else good about them, though – and I’m not sure there is anything else good about them.
Tom: How you doing?
Bentley: Terrible! Didn’t you hear the news? Paris Hilton has been sent back to jail!
Tom: Oh, yeah, seems to me I read that she talked the LA Sheriff into letting her go home with a radio control ankle bracelet. The next thing you know, there’s this shot of a guy delivering her heaps of cupcakes all over the media. Then there were reports that she had a tanning service send a van over and was ordering out for high-priced chi-chi Beverly Hills pizzas. Then, this morning, I heard that the judge was going to haul her back for a hearing today. I don’t know, maybe if she’d cooled it with the damn cupcakes – I’m pretty sure they didn’t play well with the public, you know, and the tanning van – then maybe nobody would have gone on talk radio to denounce her for ordering high priced chi-chi Beverly Hills pizzas.
Bentley: Tom, it’s the God-given right of every wealthy young woman to have as many cupcakes, tanning van visits and expensive pizzas as she wants, any time she wants! Besides, she didn’t even order the cupcakes herself – one of the producers she works with sent them!
Tom: Gee, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
Bentley: You can say that again! That’s what the FSJP is all about. You have no idea how tough it is to be filthy rich in America these days. If a poor person got released to house arrest with a radio transmitter shackled to their ankle, do you think a crowd of photographers and TV crews would congregate at their front door? Would well-wishers sent them an obscenely huge order of fresh, gourmet cupcakes? Of course not! And therefore, that poor person would not have to go back to court and explain to the judge what awful health problem they had, which made it necessary to release them to house arrest, either.
Tom: Yeah, it’s really a shame, the way rich people are discriminated against in our justice system, Bentley. But the die is cast as far as Paris Hilton is concerned, isn’t it? Nothing we can do about that…
Bentley: Not us. Her lawyers will probably have her out on Monday with an appeal and bail bond, anyway. But the Hilton case has effectively moved up the deadline on the sentencing guidelines policy analysis and recommendations we’re working on, and I need some immediate input from you concerning the latest FSJP sentencing formulas.
Tom: OK, I’m driving home at the moment, but I’m using hands-free and the traffic is pretty light, so shoot.
Bentley: Thanks for being so responsive, Tom. These results can’t wait until Monday. I want to get a draft to the board by close of business today.
Tom: I certainly admire your dedication to obtaining legal favoritism for rich people, Bentley.
Bentley: Well, the way I figure it, if I do a good job, I’ll be rich enough to take advantage of special treatment myself someday.
Tom: Another typical example of your, uh, truly remarkable reasoning, Bentley.
Bentley: Thanks! So, here’s what we’ve got – we leave in the usual judicial considerations of aggravating and mitigating factors for determining the exact sentence, but we introduce a numerical point scale and a weighted average sum technique, and specify a coefficient for each factor in the weighted average summation. Then we determine an Aggravating and Mitigating Factor Adjustment Value.
Tom: Okay, I get the idea; how do you determine the AMFAV?
Bentley: It’s the sum of one and the natural logarithm of the individual’s current net worth, as expressed in millions of dollars.
Tom: Oh, I get it – then, if the AMFAV is positive, you multiply the mitigating factor values by the AMFAV and divide the aggravating factor values by it; but if it’s negative, you take the absolute value, then multiply the aggravating factors by it and divide the mitigating factors by it – then you calculate the weighted average and multiply that by the recommended sentence?
Bentley: Precisely!
Tom: So, if you had an aggravated DUI, where the perp was way over the limit, swore, used racial slurs and fought with the arresting officers, you’d have aggravating factors of extreme intoxication, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. On the other hand, you’d have, say, mitigating factors of no priors, public expression of contrition, and a good record with the parole officer prior to trial. So, say the recommended sentence is 6 months and you assign equal weights to all the factors, aggravating and mitigating alike…
Bentley: Turn the crank and bingo! Regular guy, net worth of $75,000, he gets a raw sentence score of nine and one-half months. Mel Gibson, net worth $850 million, he gets a raw sentence score of 23 days.
Tom: I see – but is it really fair to sentence Mel Gibson to 23 days in jail for what, in the final analysis, was nothing more than him behaving like an Australian – something he obviously couldn’t help doing?
Bentley: Of course not! And furthermore, nobody with that kind of money should be deprived of it for three whole weeks! That’s why we were just working the raw scores. The next step is find the true, adjusted sentence score.
Tom: How do you do that?
Bentley: That’s very simple, too. Again, if the AMFAV is greater than zero, divide it into the raw score; if the AMFAV is less than zero, multiply the raw score by its absolute value.
Tom: So that leaves us with what?
Bentley: Mel gets sentenced to three days; Joe Blow with his $75,000 net worth gets sentenced to fifteen months.
Tom: Sounds pretty much like what happens these days already.
Bentley: Yeah, but now we have a formula for it!
Tom: That’s definitely an advantage when critics start throwing those rhetorical brickbats. So, how about, say, Bill Gates spies some little company that just developed the next killer application and Microsoft starts vending a lame, bug-ridden imitation of it with the next release of Vista, and the little guy threatens to sue. So, what if, to avoid that happening, Gates hires a hit man for five million bucks and the hit man kills the guy, but then they get caught?
Bentley: Oh yeah, that’s a great example. Let me take a minute to make some notes on that here. Okay. So, let’s see, the nominal value of life without parole is 90 years… Ah, yeah, and Gates is worth 56 billion… and let’s assume the hit man is only worth the 5 million that Gates paid him to murder somebody who was in Microsoft’s way… Okay, yeah… the hit man gets sentenced to 13 years… and Gates gets sentenced to seven months and eighteen days.
Tom: Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Bentley: That’s completely and totally hypothetical, for sure. After all, I doubt Gates would hire a hit man who would get caught in the first place. I mean, for five million bucks, you ought to at least get competent service.
Tom: One would certainly hope so, anyway. So, using your formula, what sentences would various other rich people serve for getting caught… oh, I don’t know, say, killing somebody and then eating their liver with fava beans and a good chianti?
Bentley: Okay, let’s call that aggravated murder one with special circumstances – qualifies for two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole, so the working figure is a sentence of 180 years… Tom Cruise – four years and three months; Tiger Woods – four years even; Shaquille O’Neal – four years and five months; Britney Spears – five years and eight months; Oprah Winfrey – two years and seven months; Jay-Z – five years and five months; Angelina Jolie – eight years and eight months; Justin Timberlake – seven years and nine months; Christina Aguilera – six years and eleven months; Michael Jordan – three years and eight months; either of the Olsen twins – seven years and two months; Dakota Fanning – thirty one years and seven months…
Tom: Thirty one years for little Dakota Fanning?
Bentley: Well, she’s only worth about four million dollars.
Tom: Oh, right – that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I guess – hypothetically, of course.
Bentley: Sure – I mean, there’s absolutely no way any of those nice, rich celebrities would ever actually kill somebody and saute their sweetbreads…
Tom: But, more realistically, they might accidentally kill the maid in their luxury hotel suite somewhere in the United States – say, by beating the maid with a telephone in order to impress upon the maid how important, significant and famous they are.
Bentley: Let’s say that’s aggravated manslaughter one with special circumstances – so the basic sentence is about 40 years. Okay, then Madonna serves eight months; Julia Roberts – one year and one month; Martha Stewart – eight and one half months; Celine Dion – eleven months; Mariah Carey – eleven months and three weeks; Janet Jackson – thirteen months; Julia Roberts – thirteen months and one week; Naomi Campbell – sixteen months; Judge Judy – one year and four months…
Tom: Hold on there now, you know Judge Judy is going to pull some strings if she ever gets busted for anything.
Bentley: Oh, no doubt about that – but these are just the recommended sentences – I bet Judge Judy would figure out how to get off on a technicality, anyway; like, maybe if she was making a long-distance call with the phone, then the crime was committed in that jurisdiction or something.
Tom: And so she would have to be tried there, but she was calling, say, Kuwait, where it’s legal to beat your servants to death if you feel like it.
Bentley: Exactly – something like that.
Tom: And, of course, none of those wonderful celebrities would ever really beat their hotel maid with a telephone…
Bentley: Ah, well, actually, Tom, Naomi Campbell did do that…
Tom: But she didn’t kill anyone.
Bentley: Oh, absolutely not!
Tom: Yeah, so how about that – how about a serious beat down?
Bentley: You mean, like if they were to pick up a brass velvet rope stand and lay open a paparazzi’s skull…
Tom: That’s paparazzo, Bentley – if there’s only one of them. “Paparazzi” is plural.
Bentley: Oh, right, okay, but the paparazzo doesn’t die – he spends like, a week in the hospital and six months recovering?
Tom: Sure, something like that.
Bentley: Okay, that’s aggravated assault, five years. So, let’s see… Ellen DeGeneres – five weeks; Sandra Bullock – eight weeks; Cameron Diaz – eight and one-half weeks; Nicole Kidman and Christina Aguilera – six weeks; Renee Zellweger – eleven weeks; David Geffen – three weeks.
Tom: I don’t know, that logarithmic scale seems a tad unfair to billionaires. David Geffen would serve half as long a sentence as Christina Aguilera, but David Geffen has seventy five times as much money!
Bentley: We figure there aren’t that many billionaires, plus most billionaires would probably have one of their flunkies beat the paparazzi and maids and such people for them.
Tom: True. How’s it look for something like the kind of trouble Paris Hilton is in?
Bentley: A forty-five day sentence for violation of DUI probation. If it were Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks – 29 hours; Jim Carrey – 55 hours; Kevin Costner – 37 hours; Harrison Ford – 24 hours; Arnold Schwarzenegger – 27 hours…
Tom: Schwarzenegger’s the governor! He’d just pardon himself!
Bentley: But what if he did it outside of California?
Tom: Good point.
Bentley: Let’s see, who else? Ah, yeah, Steven Spielberg – 13 hours; Lindsay Lohan – five days; and, Al Franken – eight days.
Tom: And how much time would Bill Gates serve on that rap?
Bentley: About eight hours.
Tom: Hypothetically, of course.
Bentley: Most assuredly – I’m certain none of those nice celebrities would ever violate a court order on a DUI; or even get arrested for a DUI in the first place.
Tom: Except Lindsay Lohan.
Bentley: Oh, yeah, but she’s such a sweet kid. I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm driving around drunk as a lord and stoked up like a Las Vegas hooker on mounds of cocaine.
Tom: I don’t think there was any evidence that she was drunk, though.
Bentley: Oh, right – just stoked up like a Las Vegas hooker on mounds of cocaine, then.
Tom: I think I understand, but tell me this – the purpose of this sliding scale based on wealth is to ensure that rich people actually serve some time, right? That’s the idea, isn’t it – that even if you’re the richest person in the world, that doesn’t mean you get off scot free when you commit a crime?
Bentley: Well, I’d say that’s an excellent way to sell the concept!
Tom: Uh-huh. You know, something just occurred to me. Paris Hilton lives in a multi-million dollar mansion and has plenty of spending money, but it’s her parents that have all the net worth. Heck, I bet her net worth is probably no more than a million…
Bentley: Really?
Tom: Yeah, I’m pretty sure…
Bentley: Oh, my God! I mean, if you only have one million dollars, then… the log of one in any base is zero, of course… oh, horse doovers! According to the formula, if Paris only has a net worth of one million dollars, she has to serve the entire 45 days!
Tom: And what if we’re being too optimistic about her net worth… what if it’s only half a million dollars?
Bentley: Holy smokes! Then the formula says she has to serve a year and three months!
Tom: Poor little rich girl!
Bentley: It’s totally tragic!
Tom: Looks like that formula needs some work.
Bentley: What would you recommend?
Tom: Try lowering the base to increments of a hundred thousand dollars instead of one million.
Bentley: Okay… Oustanding! If we do that, Paris does less than a week in jail even if her net worth is only a half million.
Tom: Certainly sounds more realistic. Okay, with the formula set like that, how much time would Bill Gates do for killing and eating somebody?
Bentley: About eleven months.
Tom: That also sounds like what would really happen if, hypothetically, Bill Gates turned cannibal. I’d say go with the formula set like that, then.
Bentley: Will do. Not that Bill Gates would ever become a cannibal, of course.
Tom: Oh no, Bill Gates would never, ever kill and eat another human being, slowly roasting their flesh on a spit while insanely cackling and reveling in the raw, naked power of his ill-gotten billions. Oh, no – it’s all totally hypothetical, my dear Bentley; totally hypothetical. No way Bill Gates would ever go cannibal.
Bentley: And neither would Paris Hilton.
Tom: Right. Bye.
Bentley: Ciao.