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Paris Hilton hires legal DUI specialist

“I absolutely realize how serious driving under the influence is. I could not live with myself if anyone was injured or killed while I was driving while impaired,” said the heiress.
/ Source: Access Hollywood

Following her sentence on May 4 of 45 days in the slammer for violating her DUI probation, Paris Hilton has hired a new attorney.

The heiress has snapped up DUI-specialist, Richard Hutton from the Southern California based firm Hutton & Wilson. According to DUI-California.com, Hutton is a past President of the California DUI Lawyers Association and a founding member of the National College of DUI Defense.

As for her first attorney, Howard Weitzman, he told “Access,” “I am still representing Paris in the reckless driving matter in which she was originally charged with DUI.”

Paris, who blew a .08 on her sobriety test could stand to benefit from her new attorney’s experience. According to the Hutton-Wilson.com Web site, a host of clients are listed who blew higher alcohol ratings on their breathalyzer tests than Hilton, but ended up with not guilty verdicts in front of a jury. At least one of their clients, who was on their fourth DUI offense, was not sentenced to any jail time at all, but 180 days of treatment.

Paris’ trouble legally, however, may be a harder web to unravel. The heiress already pled her DUI charge from last fall. She was ordered to jail for the 45 days after a judge ruled Paris’ two stops earlier this year when her licenses was revoked, counted as probation violations stemming from her DUI conviction.

Meanwhile, following yesterday’s news that a petition had popped up, asking California Governor Schwarzenegger to pardon Paris’ sentence, a host of petitions concerned with the opposite move are making the rounds.

“Paris chose to drive drunk, she chose to drive with a suspended license and she now chooses to whine about her punishment, which is reasonable in every sense of the word,” the ParisNo petition author writes. “I’m insulted that Paris Hilton compares her spending 45 days in a jail to cruelty. There are so many more injustices occurring right now as I type this out, much more pressing than a spoiled heiress spending a month and a half in a jail cell subject to bologna sandwiches.”

Through her new attorney, Hilton released the following statement today: “After reading the media’s coverage of my court hearing, I feel the need to correct what I believe are misperceptions about me. I absolutely realize how serious driving under the influence is. I could not live with myself if anyone was injured or killed while I was driving while impaired. Clearly, no one should — no matter how slightly. I am ready to face the consequences of violating probation.

No one is above the law. I surely am not. I do not expect to be treated better than anyone else who violated probation. However, my hope is that I will not be treated worse.”