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Lindsay Lohan Hearing: Actress Gets Rehab, Not Jail

By Tanya Roth, Esq. on October 22, 2010 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

It wasn't a 'Freaky Friday' in a Los Angeles courtroom today, unless of course you were expecting the Lindsay Lohan hearing to result in actual punishment for the probation violation she committed when she failed two drug tests last month. On October 22, Judge Elden Fox decided that rehabilitation was the better part of valor, and assigned our errant actress to just over two months in rehab in lieu of any additional jail time.

Judge Fox may have had his reasons for not tossing Lohan back in the big house for her failed drug tests. His order in September that she await this latest Lindsay Lohan hearing behind bars was overturned and LiLo was out on bail and voluntarily in rehab during the time between her last court appearance and this one.

As the New York Post points out, this is Lohan's fifth court appearance since May.

Lohan will be heading back to rehab under Judge Fox's decision today, reports the Post, for a mandatory stint that will last until January 3. Lindsay will remain at the Betty Ford center past the New Year's holiday -- on purpose. The Post writes Judge Elden Fox noted dourly, "You're staying past the New Year's -- there's a reason for that." Despite what might seem a lighter punishment than the jail time threatened by the judge, he declared that he would not be manipulated by Lohan and this was her last chance to get clean.

As noted in a previous post on this blog, Lohan had been released from rehab early and was on a regimented course of drug tests, frequent counseling sessions, meetings with probation officials and sober mentors. One wonders where she even found the time to fall off the wagon, but fall she did, leading to today's hearing. Had she not failed her drug test, she was on a path that would have allowed her to complete probation by the end of the year, reports the Post. The court has some discretion in deciding what the appropriate terms of probation will be and when a defendant has sufficiently met all those terms.

Like everything else, recovery is one step forward and two steps back. However, Lohan needs to keep moving forward or the legal consequences of the next slip will surly include a step into an orange jumpsuit.

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