From the New York Times:

Ms. Hilton was not the only high-profile defen­dant whose celebrity prompted a raised eye­brow from a judge this week. Also on Fri­day, the judge who sen­tenced I. Lewis Libby Jr. to prison this week issued an order drip­ping with sar­casm after receiv­ing a sup­port­ing brief from a dozen promi­nent legal schol­ars, includ­ing Alan M. Der­showitz of Har­vard and Robert H. Bork, the for­mer Supreme Court nominee.

The judge, Reg­gie B. Wal­ton of Fed­eral Dis­trict Court in Wash­ing­ton, said he would be pleased to see sim­i­lar efforts for defen­dants less famous than Mr. Libby, the for­mer chief of staff to Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney.

“The court trusts,” Judge Wal­ton wrote, in a foot­note longer than the order itself, that the brief for Mr. Libby “is a reflec­tion of these emi­nent aca­d­e­mics’ will­ing­ness in the future to step up to the plate and pro­vide like assis­tance in cases involv­ing any of the numer­ous lit­i­gants, both in this court and through­out the courts of our nation, who lack the finan­cial means to fully and prop­erly artic­u­late the mer­its of their legal positions.”

“The court,” he added, “will cer­tainly not hes­i­tate to call for such assis­tance from these luminaries.”