As a former Sergeant who worked in a jail for 5 years I will shed some light on some myths and realities of what jail life is like for some people.
This is a Myth:
If your sentenced to 45 days you wont have to serve the whole time will you? Most inmates serve less than half of the amount of time they are sentenced. Is there any chance that he does less time and gets out early based on behavior at jail.
Reality:
Some people have review dates where they could potentially serve less then initially ordered, . These are typically for people who have minors who rely on the support of the person going to jail or other dependents, or very large metro areas where they just don't have the resources to "farm" out their inmates. Google "jail bed space for rent." Others can have their lawyers petition the court to have your sentence reviewed. With the short sentence of 45 days , and that they are almost always set about 30 days out and would need to have been petitioned to the court and approved before the first 15 days. Its not going to take a day for that to happen so we'll give it a 7-10 days for the lawyer to draw up the paperwork, for it to be sent tot he judges office, sit on his desk till the million other things are done with including presiding over other peoples cases and petitions of other sorts.
So say it does get done is a really fast 5 days, and is approved and they have a court hearing on day 35 of 45. Good luck with a judge reducing it then, it is almost over and he truly has more important things to worry about, and from the sounds of it got off pretty lightly of his his sentence, due to the public interest of this case. Seems like this turned into a making an example of athletes. A regular person might have gotten 30 days, or just probation. He'll do his 45 days in my opinion.
what civil liabilities? why did the judge mention that?
Civil Liabilities can mean civil responsibilities which are things that don't have to do with the court. Meaning...not the courts problem
Myth:
To the ones saying he got off easy, thats not really the case. Lots of people never spend more then a night in jail. Even though this is a felony, even then guys rarely see jail time on a first time felony charge, unless of course it is something extreme, which this is not. I am however happy that he does have to do some jail time, it is the best tool to keep people out of jail/coming back to jail, send them there for a bit.
As stated before its been dropped to a misdemeanor, and a lot of people serve jail sentences as first offenders, it really comes down to the DA/CA, the judge and your defense lawyer, but here what I know about "jail"
Reality:
You have 3 types of people who go to jail.
The first are scared out of their mind, they are physically small, emotionally not confident and become prey, and are likely to be non-repeat offenders of hardly any sort. Simply put, jail is the worst thing that could possibly happen to them.
The Second are the repeat offenders, been there, done it, not big deal just an inconvenience to their life much like someone who gets deploy to the middle east. They made a life choice to serve our great country, and they understand the challenge their family deals with. A criminal has the same mindset. They made a life choice to be a poo-bag, and they are often easy enough to get a long with types that usually only befriend someone for selfish manipulative reasons.
The third is a person who is honestly scared about going but is physically big, and emotionally confident. This is in my best guess going to be Lewis, the poo-bags aren't going to see him as prey, they are going to see him as someone they will try to manipulate (everyone in jail gets manipulated to some degree even staff). . They might do it to be cool, to hang out with the division 1 football guy, hear his stories, some might befriend him, make him feel as though these he's one of the guys. That is the dangerous part. When you start siding with these people they start to change the way you think and desensitize you.
I've seen good people go to jail, and come out criminals, this might be way out of line to post here, but I just get tired of all the myths about sentencing because of all of the celebrities who live in LA where they just don't have the room or the money to keep people in jail. Anyways, I thought I'd share my knowledge with you all. Maybe it will give others different perspective.