Celebrities Above the Law
“I can say unequivocally that celebrities are treated with kid gloves by comparison to their day-to-day counterparts. There is great deference given to them by officers, from the moment of custody to the booking stage to getting cells of their own.” - Steven Knowles. (Gornstein). Today, there are several incidents where celebrities are caught breaking the law, but they do not get the punishment for it. Celebrities and wealthy people on the high popularity scale get special treatment in the court of law.
Throughout history, there has been problems with the rich and famous getting away with crimes. A great example of that is the 1920’s Black Sox Scandal. In the 1919 World Series, eight White Sox players were paid to
…show more content…
Celebrities are often given sentences, but they do not end up having to fulfill them. “Richie (Nicole Richie) served the better part of a four-day jail sentence for driving under the influence of drugs in 82 minutes. She never saw the inside of a jail cell.” (Celebrity Justice). If it were an ordinary person, they would have seen the inside of a jail cell, and longer for 83 minutes. “Paris Hilton has been arrested multiple times for drunk driving, cocaine possession, and leaving the scene of an accident. In California, this is considered a misdemeanor crime, and is punishable by a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. She didn’t have to do either of those.” (Celebrities Who Got Off Easy). It completely baffles me that someone can get away with their faults just because they have money or they are well known. It angers me that others or have committed the same exact crimes have served jail time, but these celebrities haven’t. Even when they are convicted, they get easier sentences. For example, Samuel Curtis Johnson II was given an incredibly weak sentence for an atrocious offense. “Billionaire Samuel Curtis Johnson II, of the SC Johnson household products empire, was given only four months in jail and a $6,000 fine for pleading guilty to child molestation charges. He did not even have to register as a sex offender.” (Celebrities Who Got Off Easy). Additionally, celebrities also get special treatment while they are in jail. They get bigger and better rooms, fast treatment, and unusual accomodations. “During Lindsay Lohan’s 14 days of jail, she got to have visitors after hours and she got to order special food.” When the rich and famous commit a crime, they should be held accountable. They should be there to pay the
This Black Sox Scandal trial was a very interesting trial I had wanted to know about for the longest time. In writing this paper I mainly referred to the site, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/blacksox/blacksox.html
The PBS Frontline Documentary The Untouchables shined light on the claim that wealthier people in today’s society get off easier when they break the law. During the financial crisis of 2008, it was said that fraud was committed when many mortgage bankers and high-end executives on Wall Street knowingly bought loan portfolios that didn’t meet their policy credit standards. Even with the evidence in place, no one was arrested and held responsible for a stock crash that nearly destroyed the entire financial system of the United States. With a powerful justice system and justifiable evidence in place, no was prosecuted. Did the justice system not take the necessary steps to ensure that justice was served
The athletes at these institutions bring in tons of money into their school every year and deserve compensation. These Universities are exploiting these athletes by not giving them back what they make for their school. The numbers say it all when it comes to the scamming of the athletes by their own schools. In 2004, over 40 schools brought in more than $10 million, with 10 of them bringing in over $30 million. Several athletes around the nation are worth more than $1 million to their school(Brown). Both of these statistics are proof that while these athletes are essential to their schools, they are still kept out of the revenue. Even though these Universities won’t pay their players, the schools still have no problem giving their coaches some money. In 40 U.S. states the head coach of the basketball or football program is the highest paid public official(Edelman). Over the past 20 years, there has been a major increase in the popularity of college athletes. From 1989 to 2004 there was a 27% increase in ticket revenue(Brown)...
People with money think they have the ability to get away with their unlawful actions, to buy their freedom. In the show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, in the episode “Wonderland”, Sarah Walsh was a victim of rape. She was unaware of who had raped her but eventually found out her rapist appeared to be one of her “friends” who was very wealthy. He had paid off his other victims to keep him away from the title of a criminal. Throughout the show, you can see the way people with money think about their position and the law. In the episode “Wonderland” of Law and Order: SVU, the creator portrays that criminals with money are punished not as severely as average income people. The issue of people who believe,
all worthy people living in a jubilant but melancholy world, why should anyone get worse penalties than another? Some may feel like celebrities should have longer jail sentences, higher tickets, and pay more money for fines. Others think that celebrities should be treated fairly like everyone else. Honestly nothing determines who a celebrity is, what actually determines who a celebrity is? Celebrities are all regular people however some receive a high amount of bad publicity plus the sentence or what they owe.
In recent years the idea of student-athletes getting paid for playing in college has become more and more popular. There have been many instances where questions have been raised surrounding some of the finest athletes participating in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Some of the biggest names in athletics have been involved, including Cam Newton, Reggie Bush, Johnny Manziel, along with many more athletes who have been exposed by the media for supposedly accepting cash benefits while in college. Most recently Johnny Manziel has been brought up in an autograph scandal. Apparently he was paid ten-thousand dollars for more than over one thousand and one hundred autographs. Ultimately Manziel was only suspended one half of a full collegiate football game, but is it really fair that he was forced to sit a half of football game because he simply gave some people his John Hancock? Reggie Bush and Cam Newton have both been involved in scandals involving mone...
An orange jump suit, handcuffs, and a jail cell seems like the life of a criminal, but what about a celebrity worth $638 million? For five long months that life was Martha Stewarts. Though Stewart was already a famous business women, this situation caused an abundance of drama and commotion. Stewart overcame this, by serving her time and becoming better, which is something she learned from her parents and throughout college. While prison was a challenge, she overcame it, and has impacted lives all over the nation since.
This sort of behavior is constant over time. Celebrities today are posted and paraded all over TV and magazines, no matter what they do. Justin Beiber was caught drunk driving, stealing property, and many more crimes.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Today most young people think that if a person is rich and famous, they can get away with anything. They see rappers get charged with felonies and then they see that the charges get dropped. They’ve heard of celebrities running over children while drunk and get away with it without doing any time. However, not all rappers have run-ins with the law, but the ones that do are very well known. Tupac Shakur (RIP), for example, had many run-ins with the law. He was arrested for aggravated assault, and charged with shooting two off duty police officers in Atlanta in 1993, but the charges were later dropped (bomp). He was also accused of beating a limousine driver in Los Angeles and found guilty of threatening a fellow rapper with a baseball bat in Michigan (bomp).
The controversy of athletes being overpaid dates back to 1922, when well-known baseball player George “Babe” Ruth received $50,000 within the first year of his career. Ruth’s extensive wealth was bolstered by dozens of endorsements (Saperecom). As it is shown in figure 1, in the Fortunate 50 Tiger Woods takes the number one spot for highest paid athlete. Tiger’s salary for 2011 is $2,294,116 and like Babe Ruth, his endorsements exceed his salary earning $60,000,000 making his total $62,294,116 (Freedman). It’s crazy to think that 89 years ago professional athletes scarcely made more than the average person today. This is of course not counting the inflation that has occurred since the years which Babe Ruth played baseball.
This case illustrated that there were real consequences to white collar crime. In addition to paying the fifty million dollar fine, he relinquished another fifty million dollars of his illegal trading profits. (He still had millions remaining, however, from his illegal gains.) His actual prison sentence was three years, yet he served only twenty-two months in the federal prison at Lompoc, California, which was known to have a “country-club” atmosphere.
In addition, if someone was fallowing you, taking pictures and bullying you every day single day, you would instantly report them to the police and they would without a doubt get the stalkers arrested, and they would get a restraining order. But if a celebrity calls the cops saying that there is someone following them and harassing them, no one is willing to protect them, because they are not able to stop the paparazzi for good. It 's like all celebrities are being punished for being rich and successful. Nobody deserves
Do we as a society have the right to punish celebrities when they misbehave? Do celebrities have the right to become livid when they are focused on their immoral behavior? Do they love the media attention only when it benefits them? Before we can answer the above questions, would we, furthermore, can we live our life as a celebrity if given the opportunity? The perks of illimitable wealth, vacationing all over the world, housekeepers, chefs, being in receipt of freebies from designers, multiple homes in diverse parts of the world, chauffeurs, the finest foods, and all the other perks that come with being a celebrity?
Due to the greediness of sports figures, professional athletes are not punished in the same manner as other professionals are. It is like they are in a completely different group that uses an entirely different set of morals. Team owners care more about making their money that they do about setting a good example for young kids and making professional sports fun again rather than a business. Three good examples of this greediness are Roberto Alomar, Warren Sapp, and Dennis Rodman. Team owners and their respective leagues need to do something to turn this situation around before they have murderers and rapists playing sports for millions of dollars a year.
Should celebrities have their right to privacy? Before newspapers, television, and the internet, ordinary people were not exposed to endless stories about celebrities. Today however, we are bombarded with information about who is dating whom, where they eat, and what they wear from magazines such as People, Entertainment Weekly, and Star. Also, most ordinary people respect the rights of others to a private life. However, some people are just obsessed to get information out of celebrities. They want to know everything about them and have a desire for more information. Celebrities should have their right to privacy due to historical/practical rights, their invasion of privacy with paparazzi, and their childrens’ rights to privacy. They are ordinary people just with a famous role in life.