WHERE TO, MISS? Hilton

Rocky Delgadillo deserves the chance to gloat a little. When Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Paris Hilton back behind bars earlier today, it marked a vindication of a months-long campaign by the Los Angeles city attorney to ensure that celebrities are subject to the same standards of law enforcement as regular citizens.

"Today, justice was served," Delgadillo—who learned of Hilton's early release in Boston, where he was attending his Harvard class reunion—tells Radar. "This decision sends a message that no one, no matter how wealthy or powerful, is above the law."

Delgadillo has long wondered why underage stars like Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen twins are consistently able to enter 21-plus clubs and drink in public without difficulty, and without much public outcry. But when Hilton was released, on Sheriff Lee Baca's orders, it seemed to tap a vein of pent-up outrage. "Our office was inundated with calls," he says.

Baca declines to comment on the various rumors swirling around the Hilton case—that her "medical issue" involved depression, or suicide threats, or alcohol withdrawal, or that her lawyers cut a deal to have her released early, even before she entered custody.

He disputes claims that Hilton is actually a victim of prosecutorial zeal, with non-celebrity violators convicted of the same crime often serving only a few days on grounds that the jails in L.A. are overstuffed. "Overcrowding is a separate issue," he says. "As far as we know there is no overcrowding. The sheriff never mentioned that."

And while it's easy to deride the "controversy" as a case of yet another celebrity story running roughshod over the "real" news, Delgadillo believes it has important ramifications. "I was troubled that the sheriff's department was improperly circumventing the judicial process in this case," he says. "If law enforcement is to work fairly and we are to earn the respect of those we are suppose to protect, we cannot tolerate a two-tiered jail system. We must insure that justice remains blind."

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• Paris: I Bought the Law
• City Attorney: Send Paris Back Now!

Photo: Splash News & Picture Agency