Is justice also served for the rich and famous?

"Money can increase your options and sometimes buy you time," says Jean Rosenbluth, a former prosecutor for the US attorney's office in Los Angeles. "But it can't help you escape the evidence.... Look at [actress] Winona Ryder or [home-furnishings maven] Martha Stewart – they had big-money lawyers and both lost their cases."

Hilton to do more time than the norm

In Hilton's case, legal experts say she will end up serving more time in a Los Angeles County jail than do most others convicted of similar offenses. She has been ordered to jail for 23 days of her 45-day sentence – a punishment that some media and pundits initially characterized as light.

"Baca's county jail system has been so overcrowded that misdemeanor defendants have been serving only 0 to 10 percent of their time," says Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "Ironically, ... now that the judge put her back to serve the remainder of her time, she is serving more time than most."

A Los Angeles Times report on June 14 confirms this assessment, calculating that Hilton will serve more time than 80 percent of people with similar sentences.

"Celebs have it easier on the front end.... They have better access to quality representation, jurors are enamored, and so on," says Alafair Burke, associate professor at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, N.Y. "However, once they're convicted, they're arguably treated worse because the sentencing judge, aware that a celebrity-obsessed culture is watching, doesn't want to look soft."

As the Hilton case plays out, experts are looking to Tuesday's testimony from a county undersheriff for a better understanding of why Baca released Hilton on June 7, citing an unspecified medical condition.

The case may also serve to clarify state and local regulations concerning discretion of judges and jailers – especially when dealing with jail overcrowding. Steve Whitmore, spokesman for Baca, says the law gives the sheriff "sole, exclusive authority" over county jails.

Some experts question that. "I have never heard of a penal system where the guy running the jail – the sheriff, the warden, the jailer, or whatever – ... can walk down the corridor and say, 'Love your hair. I'm letting you out today,' " says Milton Hirsch, an adjunct professor at the University of Miami and a past president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It does hurt the system when there is the perception that the ordinary, regular guy is not going to get equal justice under the law."

"There are cost and safety issues that come up with a high-profile case like Hilton," says Robert Jarvis, professor of law and popular culture at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "Depending on what light is shed on [Baca's] motives, this case could raise all kinds of questions about enforceable cooperation between judges and sheriffs."

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