UNITED STATES—By now, you’re already read the previous piece “Purchasing Justice Part I: The Everyday Person,” here is the sequel tothat piece.  So why is the focus turning to ‘the celebrity?’ Well, we’ve all seen countless cases in the media where big time celebs have bought their way out of the legal system. Listing the number of celebs who’ve had major run-ins with the law and get a pop on the hand is not even worth the waste of time.

The point to address is the fact that celebs tend to have a boatload of cash and they use that money to get themselves out of dicey situations. I’d hate to say this, but some celebs know, if it wasn’t for their notoriety and amount of income, they’d be like the everyday citizen. If you commit a murder, there is no one getting out of it if you’re like everyone else and not financially loaded as some would say.

Have a drug case where you’re caught with cocaine, meth, marijuana or some other high caliber drug, don’t think you’re getting a pop on the hand.  I laugh so many times about celebrities who are caught in big time drug cases and manage to land probation versus drug time, “Really?”  How is this possible? It’s called money, and in the legal arena people, money talks.

I remember speaking to my criminal justice professor in college and asking him if the legal system take a transformative approach to justice would that deter the amount of crime, his answer to my question was “Well, yes, but it’s a bit more complicated.” He gave me a slice of information that stumped me, but actually made sense when I examined it. If all crime ceased to exist, it leaves the legal system without any income.  It’s almost perpetuated to have crime in order to keep the system financially stable and continuing to progress.

Wow, I never thought of things in that demeanor, but it’s an honest piece of reality.  Money keeps the legal arena in contention; celebs tend to play a big role in that notion. The biggest question that we have to ask ourselves is what distinct message we are sending to children, to teens, to young adults, etc.  We are continuing to send the mixed signal that money can buy you out of any situation and we must stop doing so. If a wrong doing is committed, it’s the responsibility of the guilty party to acknowledge the wrongdoing and make amends to the issue. So many people get chance, after chance, after chance and continue to do the same thing over and over without ever fully learning from the mistakes of bad judgment.

Is this to say every celebrity will use their ‘name’ to get out of a sticky situation, who knows there are a quite a few who have done so, I won’t name names, you already know them. Money, status or name should not be a factor in the legal arena; the facts and the evidence are the crucial elements to a case. That’s the problem we will in a culture where so many of us believe we are ”˜entitled’ to superior opportunities compared to those who are not on the same level as us. The rich, the celebrity, the fame, the money, does not matter, in the end we’re all human beings, so we should be judged equally.