MATT LAUER, co-host:
But let's begin this half-hour with the day that
Lindsay Lohan
has feared for some time. She's scheduled to surrender for the start of her 90-day
jail sentence
. Now there are reports that her newest attorney,
Robert Shapiro
, will not be with her.
NBC
's
Lee Cowan
's at the
Beverly Hills Courthouse
with the latest on all this.
Lee
, good morning to you.
LEE COWAN reporting:
Well, good morning,
Matt.
Yeah, if true that
Robert Shapiro
has in fact quit, that would be the second attorney in as many weeks to leave
Lohan
's side.
Robert Shapiro
, of course, of
O.J. Simpson
's fame, had said that he would accept the case, but only if she agreed to abide by the terms of her probation, which also include some jail time. But jail time, some say, is something that
Lindsay Lohan
is finding increasingly impossible to accept. Since her last court appearance, aside from a few public outings,
Lindsay Lohan
has largely stayed off the tabloid radar, even checking herself into a
drug rehab
facility, where some say the waiting is wreaking havoc on her nerves.
Mr. DAVID CAPLAN (Senior Editor, People Magazine):
She's had
trouble sleeping
. She's had trouble eating. She's been crying a lot.
COWAN:
People magazine
reports she's a fidgety mess. The reality of isolation and jailhouse food and jailhouse bedding is now starting to set in.
Even her tweets sound different:
`The only "bookings" that I'm familiar with are
Disney films
,' she wrote last night. `Never thought I'd be "booking" into jail.'
Mr. CAPLAN:
She's sort of being in denial about it right after she was sentenced, but now she's really thinking to herself, what is it going to be like to be in this cell by myself, alone, with not many things to do?
COWAN:
One possible strategy for limiting her jail time was getting her in
rehab
first. The
sober living
facility that
Lohan
pre-emptively checked herself into last week was the one
Robert Shapiro
opened himself after his son
Brent
died of a
drug overdose
. But while the
rehab
may improve
Lohan
's image with the court, it may not convince the judge to postpone jail time.
Mr. KEN BAKER (Chief News Correspondent, E! Network):
Most people feel like while it's a good thing that she went into this
sober living
house, I think that most people also think that it's too little, too late, and that's probably what the judge is going to think as well.
COWAN:
It's not that
rehab
isn't part of
Lohan
's sentence, it is. In fact, the judge ordered her to complete three months of inpatient care, but only after jail.
Dr. DREW PINSKY (Addiction Specialist):
The only fear I have is that by going to jail first she'll be hardened and won't be open to the treatment process, and the fact that the judge has only mandated three months when
Lindsay
clearly
needs
at least a year.
COWAN:
Now,
Matt
, that is a live picture you're looking at of the jail in
Lynwood
,
California
, where
Lindsay Lohan
is expected to report sometime later on today to be taken into custody there. The reality is though,
Matt
, no one really expects her to do some three months there. The reality is most people think she'll probably do more like three weeks. But again, this is something that most say she could have avoided had she just followed the terms of her
original probation. Matt:
All right,
Lee Cowan
.
Lee
,
thank you very much
.
Jeanine Pirro
is a former district attorney and
county judge
, and the host of the "Judge
Jeanine Pirro
Show." Dr.
Julie Holland
is a psychiatrist and author of "Weekends at Bellevue." Good morning to both of you.
LAUER:
Good morning.
Ms. JEANINE PIRRO (Former District Attorney and County Judge):
Jeanine
, let me start with you.
LAUER:
Good morning.
Dr. JULIE HOLLAND (Psychiatrist and Drug Expert):
First of all,
rehab
,
sober living
facility, what's the difference? And if you're the judge, and you are,
do you want to
take her out of that to make her go serve
90 days
in jail?
LAUER:
I tell you, I absolutely would take her out of it.
And I
believe that Judge
Revel
will do just that.
Sober living
is not a
rehab
facility. And what you've got is a woman who's been in
rehab
three to four times and gets arrested almost immediately after coming out.
It's time
for her to go to jail and serve the sentence.
Ms. PIRRO:
Let me ask you about this report that
Robert Shapiro
, her newest of a string of attorneys, may have decided, `No thank you, I don't want to be a part of this case.'
Justice
, I would imagine, is supposed to be blind to the person representing you in court. But does all this turmoil impact her case in some way?
LAUER:
I don't think it does. I think that the judge has made a decision that she's violated probation. The judge has bent over backward to give her every opportunity. She's given her an
alcohol education
program that she lied about, she didn't go to. She goes to
Cannes
, she parties. Any judge would have put her in jail long before this. So enter
Robert Shapiro
, a guy with a great pedigree, but the bottom line is it's about her pedigree and her lack of respect for the court.
It's time
for her to go to jail, irrespective of the change in lawyers.
Ms. PIRRO:
To go to jail for how long? Prosecutor has asked for
30 days
; the judge gave her
90 days
. I think a lot of people raised their eyebrows at that. In reality, how much time is she going to spend behind bars?
LAUER:
She'll spend 25 percent of that because it's
Los Angeles
and there is no truth in sentencing, and that's why people are skeptical of the
justice system
.
Ms. PIRRO:
So three weeks?
LAUER:
Three weeks at the most.
Ms. PIRRO:
All right. Dr.
Holland
, this is a troubled young lady. There have been numerous reports of her trouble with alcohol in the past. Over the last several months, according to published reports, she has been on several prescription drugs including
Adderall
,
Zoloft
and
Dilaudid
. If these had been prescribed for legitimate reasons, will be she allowed to continue taking them behind bars?
LAUER:
You know, typically the prisons decide what the patient can or cannot take, and my assumption is that they're not going to be OK with her taking addictive medications like stimulants and opiates, which is the
Adderall
and the
Dilaudid
. Whether they decide to let her continue with her anti-depressants, I think she'll have to see a psychiatrist there and they'll make that determination.
Dr. HOLLAND:
When you -- when you hear reports, and I think
People magazine
is reporting this, that's she's extremely fidgety and nervous about that, my first reaction is, good! I mean, you know, you'd want...
LAUER:
Right.
Dr. HOLLAND:
....you want her to be nervous about this. It's supposed to be a deterrent so it avoids bad behavior in the future, isn't that right?
LAUER:
Yeah. Well, you know, this in some ways is really just what she
needs
. You know, she
needs
to be -- she
needs
a time out. She
needs
to sort of be pulled away from the attention and the gawking and the enabling. She
needs
to be with herself and have some time to really be present and conscious and self-reflecting and figure out what's going on in her life and where she can
take it from here
. So I think in some ways the judge and other people, they're trying to help her. However, you know, I really think that treatment is better than incarceration and, you know, what will be best for her is to have a good psychotherapist and a psychiatrist.
Dr. HOLLAND:
Before...
LAUER:
I don't know that lawyers and prison guards are going to do much to really help her change her behavior.
Dr. HOLLAND:
Before I let
Jeanine
jump on you for that one, let me just ask you, you know, I've always heard that addicts can't be cured unless they're ready to help themselves. If a
court orders
you into
rehab
and a
court orders
you to jail, is that the same thing?
LAUER:
It really isn't the same thing, you're right. I mean, she has got to want to make changes in her behavior. She really
needs
intensive psychotherapy, she
needs
family therapy. She
needs
to learn new ways of behaving and coping.
And I
don't -- she's not going to get that sitting alone in a
jail cell
. But at least what she'll get is some time to self-reflect, and I think she
needs
it.
Dr. HOLLAND:
The
court system
didn't pick
Lindsay Lohan
and say, `
Look
, here's a woman with an
alcohol problem
, let's get her into
rehab
.' The woman is convicted of driving with a .08
blood alcohol
in her system, under the influence of cocaine, reckless driving, commandeering someone else's car. This is not about alcoholism and whether she should get treatment, it's about a woman who gets drunk and gets into a car and puts all of our lives in danger, who snubs her nose at the criminal
justice system
and says, `The rules don't apply to me the way they apply to everyone else.' If she gets
rehab
, that's great. But the bottom line is she's a criminal, she's been convicted, she's been given a break, it's
time to go
to jail.
Mr. PIRRO:
“ ”