SoKiefer Sutherland is taking a 48-day hit for his second drunk driving beef. The sentence is interesting not because he’s famous, but because what it shows about the local criminal justice system. Kiefer asked to serve the 48 days in the Glendale City Jail. Glendale’s a community of about a quarter million people just north of Los Angeles — it was a sleepy, conservative bedroom community, but is now a commercial center and quite diverse. Kiefer’s decision demonstrates a tough call by his legal team. You see, if he surrendered to the County Jail, he’d probably be out much sooner. As a second offender without a violent record, jail overcrowding might have him out as soon as a week into that 48 days — more likely two weeks. But he’d have to spend those one or two weeks in Men’s Central, which is a pit of Hell. I’ve had clients who were career bank robbers, drug dealers, and thugs of every stripe who would do anything to stay out of there. Conditions are abysmally filthy and overcrowded, prisoners are routinely attacked and even killed, rape is rampant, and generally shit goes down that makes Oz look like a situation comedy on the Lifetime channel. So Kiefer is willing to do 48 full days in a decent jail — with his own cell — rather than do as little as a week in Men’s Central. I’d probably make the same call.

Last 5 posts by Ken

• In Which I Indulge In The Very Appalling Elitist Liberal Sneering That is Destroying America - August 27th, 2010
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