Word: downey
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...Today, as always, punishment standards are subject to exceptions. One is based on celebrity, as in the scenario described above, which is roughly the story of Robert Downey Jr. The often-arrested Downey will face a judge later this month to answer a Thanksgiving weekend cocaine possession charge. At a January hearing, Downey's case was pushed back several weeks - a continuance that may signal a deal on the horizon. That's good news for the troubled actor: If Downey is convicted of this most recent felony, he could face more than four years in prison, although it's unlikely...
...Despite a laundry list of drug arrests, this would be only Downey's second trip to jail - just last August he was granted early release after a judge sentenced him to a year for probation violations. Since 1996, Downey's been arrested numerous times on drug-related charges, and has gone through countless drug treatment programs. None of it helped curb his self-destructive tendencies. "It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger's on the trigger," Downey told a judge in 1999. "And I like the taste of the gunmetal...
...Downey's is an edifying case for those concerned with the inequities of drug laws - to many, Downey (and his repeated failures to stay clean) represents the dark-side celebrity/wealth escape clause that keeps the rich and famous, not to mention the white and middle class, out of the nation's toughest prisons, and exempt from the nation's harshest drug laws. For others, including many who view imprisonment as a pointless and even dangerous punishment for drug addicts, Downey serves as a stark reminder of the strangling power of addiction, and the persistent failings of a system too bent...
With the appearance of "Traffic," a movie about the drug trade (one of Hollywood's favorite trades--just ask Robert Downey Jr.), one might have expected that a similar hack job was in the offing. And it would have been easy for Soderburgh to pull one off. He could have given us an out-of-touch drug czar, a bunch of thuggish DEA types and a few innocent teens (preferably black teens) who get busted for doing a little weed and end up the victims of our brutal, racist criminal justice system. It would have been perfect--a movie whose...
CHARGED. ROBERT DOWNEY JR., 35, actor; with two felony counts of drug possession and a misdemeanor connected to his arrest last month; in Los Angeles. If convicted, Downey, who will plead innocent, faces up to seven years in prison...