Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

Charlie Sheen is the highest paid actor in television today.  He also appears to be one of the more troubled.  His problems cannot stay out of the headlines.  Star movies such as Platoon and Wall Street and the hit comedy series, “Two and a Half Men,”   Sheen, son of well known movie star, Martin Sheen, has struggled with alcohol and drug problems for years.

“Two and a Half Men” is one of the most popular TV programs and one of the costliest for advertisers.  The average cost of a 30-second ad in the show is $226,335, according to Ad Age’s annual survey of ad prices for prime-time broadcast programming.  That price is just behind NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.  CBS is concerned Sheen may not show up to carry on their prized television show, either this time or the next time.  For a while, his bad-boy image carried a little glamour, but as his antics have continued, his unpredictability is a liability to television producers and advertisers.

In the nineties, Sheen was a regular in the tabloids for his problems.  He reported struggling with use of ecstasy three years before, saying, “Ecstasy should be called the drug from Hell – because tha’s where it leaves you.”  His bad publicity goes back to 1990, when he checked himself into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic.  In 1995, he was sued by a woman who claimed he struck her in the head when she refused to have sex with him.  But the apex was when was his appearance as a witness in the 1995 prosecution of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss in which he admitted he had ordered at least 27 prostitutes from madam Fleiss and ran up bills totaling $50,000.

After ending a six-month marriage to Donna Peal in 1996, , Sheen announced he was becoming a born-again Christian.  He said fast living was a lot of fun but “there is such a thing as too much fun.”

His latest problem had started Christmas morning, his third wife, Brooke Mueller, called the police to report a fight in the house they were renting in Aspen, Colorado.  They have been married since 2008 and have two children but they were legally separated before the fight.  Sheen’s version is that he was fighting about Mueller’s partying and she went nuts on him. He admits to breaking her glasses but denied attacking her. Mueller’s version to the police, so the police claim, was that Sheen choked her and threatened her with a knife by holding a swtichblade knife to her throat, but since then she has quit talking to the police.  Sheen posted $8,500 bond that night and was released.
Later Sheen entered rehab “as a preventive measure,” prompting invention of the word “prehab.”  Mueller, who has said she has no plans to divorce Sheen, then went into rehab.

Sheen faced a prison sentence with this charge, but a plea bargain apparently reached with the prosecution would deliver Sheen to the Pitkin County Jail for a spell, maybe up to thirty days.  There, the cells look like dormitories, floors are carpeted, a nearby hospital prepares the meals for lunch and dinner, supervised by a dietician.  Charlie Sheen had prime rib on Christmas, causing furor in the tabloids, but that was the regular menu that day for all inmates.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis presides, and he notes that most of his inmates are pretrial inmates, presumed innocent of the charges they face, which criminal defense lawyers are acutely aware but many law enforcement types are not.

The jail has a capacity of 24 but usually averages nearly half that, supervised by a staff of 12.  The sheriff hopes inmates will leave better men and women. The county’s website gives the jail’s mission as a safe, secure environment and services to “enhance physical and mental wellness and encourage self rehabilitation and successful re-integration to society for all inmates.”
Prisoners spend their days in the common room, watching television, reading, playing cards or otherwise passing the time.  They are allowed to place collect telephone calls, exercise  and visit relatives and friends regularly.  They can also go outside in the jail parking lot so long as they stay inside a fence.

Sheen’s latest problem had  seemed to be worked out, but a new wrinkle has developed.  Sheen was set to serve his jail sentence by coaching actors at Theater Aspen by day and return to jail by night.  Now reports are that the deal has fallen through, reportedly because an Aspen jail official tried to reduce the daily time Sheen would spend at the theater, out of jail.  And Sheen, a chain smoker, would have been banned from smoking outside the jail, faced a longer probation period, and would be restricted to eating only the meals provided by the jail.  That plea deal would have amended the most serious of the charges to a misdemeanor, the charge that could send him to prison for three years.  Sheen is still getting $1.8 million per episode of “Two and a Half Men.”

I can’t imagine this kind of a sentence being handed down in Oklahoma or for other domestic abuse defendants, especially with multiple offenses. However, it appears that at least some in the Hollywood crowd have been deemed to be above the law. With these examples of nothing punishments it’s no wonder Sheen keeps repeating the same criminal offenses. Our system was designed with the intent that the punishment would fit the crime, but it certainly appears to be failing with this domestic abuse case.

In Massachusetts, the state probation officer estimates that about a quarter of all restraining orders are violated.  Tracking is designed to follow those against whom judges have issued restraining orders.  Judges order them to Global Positioning System monitoring devices to be sure where they go does not violate their restraining order.
Twelve other states have passed legislation like that in Massachusetts, and about 5,000 domestic abusers and alleged abusers are now being tracked by G.P.S.  nationwide, according to Colorado’s Electronic Monitoring Resource Center, which gathers data from equipment vendors.

The G.P.S. monitor can be used after sentencing, as an alternative to jail, or before conviction, as a condition of bail.  The U.S. Marshals commonly use a monitor for both, since federal authorities always have more money available.

Those who seek restraining orders to protect themselves from stalking often have trouble proving they have stalked.  But if their alleged stalker is wearing a monitor, the monitor can make the case for them by laying a trail of their whereabouts.  The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 3.4 million in the country have stalked in one-year period of time.

Experts claim using the G.P.S. monitors can save lives.  The Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Newburyport, MA, has assisted seven other cities follow the model of the Greater Newburyport High Risk Response Team, which trains probation officers, police officers, and district attorneys to decide which domestic violence cases merit electronic monitoring.  The Center trained over 1,000 officers, advocates and prosecutors in 2008, looking at danger signs in the behavior of abusers or alleged abusers.

One approach to G.P.S. monitors views them as devices that can make the criminal justice system capable of detecting escalation in the behavior of potentially very dangerous batterers, of giving the capability of preventing serious injuries.  Some research suggests that one quarter of the women who were killed by a domestic abuser already had obtained restraining orders.

In Massachusetts, about 100 people accused of domestic abuse are monitored by a G.P.S. device.  They pay $8.00 a day for an ankle bracelet, a cell phone type device that is worn on the belt, and a home charger.  Three control centers watch their movements, and they will notify the police if a monitored person goes beyond a certain zone.

But G.P.S. devices are not a guarantee.  The wearer can remove the device and take the consequences, which will follow eventually.  It’s just a question of when those consequences occur and what takes place before those consequences kick in.