In his preface to the Penguin series of Famous Trials, first published in 1941, Harry Hodge asked what thrill “compares with the excitement of attending a criminal trial, of beholding in the flesh the man or woman who may be guilty of some secret or bloody deed?” Today, in our celebrity-obsessed culture, a famous trial is one in which the defendant is well known, however mundane the crime. A good example was the hearing this month, in Los Angeles Superior Court, of the charges that Paris Hilton had breached the terms of her probation imposed for alcohol-related driving offences.

Ms Hilton, now 26, is famous for being an heiress, model and actress (though her most celebrated role was in a homemade sex video widely available on the internet and known as “1 night in Paris”). In January, she was sentenced to three years’ probation, fined and lost her driving licence after pleading no contest to an allegation of drink driving. In February, the police stopped her while she was speeding down Sunset Boulevard at night with her headlights off. Judge Michael T. Sauer has now sentenced her to 45 days in jail for knowingly violating the terms of her probation. She was ordered to report to a county jail by June 5.

The proceedings had a number of ingredients essential for a famous trial. The first is a celebrity defendant who has little contact with reality. Ms Hilton arrived at court ten minutes after proceedings were due to commence. She gave evidence that was incredible in at least two respects. First, she testified that she had no idea that she was prohibited from driving, even though she had signed a document (found in the car’s glove department) stating that her licence was suspended. Secondly, she told the judge that “from now on I’m going to pay complete attention to everything”. When Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly gives evidence at the trial of Roxie Hart in the film Chicago, she is asked if she will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She answers: “And then some.” The trial also had the necessary element of a defence lawyer whose powers of advocacy on behalf of a client are not confined by the boundaries of established fact. Howard Weitzman told the press after the hearing that he was “shocked, surprised and really disheartened in the system that I’ve worked in for close to 40 years”. He said the sentence “bordered on the ludicrous” and his client was “singled out because of who she is”, missing the point that no one, whoever they are, can be allowed deliberately to defy the terms of a court order after a drunken-driving conviction. There is a celebrity defence lawyer in Scott Turow’s new novel, Limitations, who is always ready with a quote for CNN and Court TV and is “so ubiquitous you half-expect him in the background when you video-record your niece’s soccer game”.

Also required for a famous trial is a supporting cast of absurd relatives and unbelievable witnesses. As the prosecutor argued for jail time, the defendant’s mother, Kathy Hilton, burst out laughing. When the judge imposed a jail sentence, Mrs Hilton shouted out: “May I have your autograph?” Evidence on behalf of Paris Hilton was given by her publicist Elliot Mintz, who told the judge that he was responsible for her plight, having given her erroneous advice about the status of her suspended driving licence.

A few days later, after Mr Mintz had been fired and then rehired, he announced that he was “delighted and honoured to represent Paris. I think the world of her”. So do many of her fans who have signed an on-line petition to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, pleading for a pardon for Ms Hilton on the grounds that: “She provides hope for young people all over the US and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.”

The response of the American television chat-show host Jay Leno to this nonsense was: “Paris Hilton got 45 days in jail. A lot of people were upset about this – they were hoping for the death penalty.” But then he knows about celebrity trials. Leno was a witness at the 2005 trial of Michael Jackson (acquitted on charges of child molestation). At the end of his evidence, Leno turned to the jury and announced: “I have Reneé Zellweger on the show tonight.”

The author is a practising barrister at Blackstone Chambers in Temple and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

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