great moments that didn't happen in judicial history

If only.

In an unprecendented break from my vow to write not so much as one word about one Paris Hilton, I'm taking this opportunity to make a plea to every judge sitting on a bench today to impose severe sentences where appropriate, particularly if he or she serves in a particularly upscale district filled with particularly upscale clients who can't seem to stay on the right side of the law.

The judge who sentenced Paris Hilton to a meaningless fourteen days in jail - or whatever it was - would have made judicial history with the following pronouncement. Instead of having her serve out her remaining days, and then subject all of us to a relentless rehash of her ordeal and then have to endure the nonstop news cycle that will surround her every move for god knows how long to come, what if he had said this to her:

Miss Hilton. In the name of everything that is holy, I sentence you to the following:
You will not serve any more time in jail. In lieu of serving time, you must become immediately and completely absent from the media that surrounds you. For the next ten years, I don't want to read an inch of type about you, see your image on any existing or on any not yet developed piece of electronic equipment. I don't want to hear your voice, see your photo or
read one word written by you for any medium. You don't need to do anything except disappear from our collective consciousness.

If you do re-appear prior to July, 2017, you will immediately be detained and made to serve a full six months before you come before me again.

How great would that have been? We all get the break we deserve from this vacant woman, she gets to stay out of jail, and we never have to hear from her again until she's ten years older. At that point, maybe even she will have grown up.

In anther world perhaps. But I can dream.