Las Vegas Weekly

Are celebrities and average Joes treated the same by the legal system?

Does fame really help beat the rap?

Chris Pizzello, AP

Bruno Mars is up for six Grammys next month. He’ll attend the awards show with a clear conscience (or at least a clear criminal record) thanks to a year of probation, 200 hours of community service, eight hours of drug counseling and a $2,000 fine.

Those were the terms of the plea deal Mars struck after being busted in 2010 with 2.6 grams of cocaine in a Hard Rock Hotel bathroom. He pled guilty to felony possession before a Clark County judge, who last week confirmed the fulfillment of the plea terms and dismissed the case, wiping Mars’ record clean.

Mars was a first-time offender and exceeded the deal’s service requirements, but would his punishment have been tougher if he were just some guy? Not exactly, says Norm Reed, a Clark County deputy public defender. He represents clients who often struggle to make bail, let alone afford a lawyer, a fine, counseling fees and time off work to do community service. Celebrities, he says, simply have more resources working in their favor.

“To some of our clients, just paying a few hundred dollars, it might as well be a million,” Reed says. “It is a disadvantage and an unfair but almost impossible-to-change part of our legal system.”

On the other hand, Reed says juries, judges and lawyers have mixed feelings about how to approach celebrity cases, especially when they become media circuses. “I think that there are situations where celebrities are actually treated even more harshly,” he says. Like Paris Hilton’s 45-day jail sentence for violating probation on a reckless driving conviction, though the sheriff released her after only five days. (The big softy.)

Reed says overall, prosecutors do the best they can to give everyone a fair shake, including former Clark County Deputy District Attorney David Schubert. After prosecuting Hilton and Mars for cocaine possession, Schubert got busted for the same thing. Now that’s justice.