Winona’s Sentence Gets Five-Fingered Discount

An American judge is a lot like a shopkeeper in a bazaar in that any sentence he hands down is rarely taken seriously but is really only the first offer, to be negotiated down later. From TV Guide:

FELONY CONVICTION, INTERRUPTED: A Los Angeles judge reduced Winona Ryder’s felony shoplifting convictions to misdemeanors on Friday. The sticky-fingered thesp, who completed 480 hours of community service, paid more than $7000 in fines and attended counseling, also won a bid to serve the remainder of her three years probation unsupervised. However, the judge warned Ryder that she’d be sent back to jail if she broke the law before her probation ends in December 2005.