Roman Polanski, or pardon me but your poll is in my neck.

I mean, "Oh btw I think he should've done some fair punishment at the time etc, just don't see what good this does now for anyone" is some Bush-era DOJ style bullshit. What's the point of laws if perpetrators aren't caught, no matter how long it takes?

and there are all these guys back in the la justice dept waiting for him to get on a plane

when the victim is on the public record as wanting the case to go away

(that is, perpetrators of terrible crimes should be SWIFTLY punished).

he would've been SWIFTLY punished had he not fled the country - it's not like the LAPD diddled around for 35 years before going "oh hey we finished this case time for trial!"

a lot of sexual assault victims want the cases to go away for many reasons - this doesn't stop the police & it shouldn't

Also, you never want to encourage people to flee, or reward them for doing so.

It sucks that he's been in plain sight, but international extradition is imperfect. Dude played the system well enough to evade capture.

He planned his life around not being in a jurisdiction that would send him back to face time. It's not like he was just floating around LA for 30 years and then the DA decided to make an issue - he fled! Internationally!

yeah i mean youre right jordan.

was this the first opportunity they had to arrest him since he fled i wonder

exactly - he clearly knew that he was in the wrong, he understood the severity & he made it a painstaking point of his life - to the small detriment of his ego & career - to make sure that he never actually served time for a crime that he knew was very, very fucked up

No. He owns a house in Switzerland, so he goes there all the time. It was the first time the US asked for him.

weird

from what i read it was the first time that he didn't get wind of plans to arrest him & so he didn't ditch his plan to go to switzerland

It was the first time the US asked for him.

Wiki says: "The United States had been seeking his arrest and extradition worldwide since 2005. While there had been a U.S. arrest warrant for him since 1978, an international arrest warrant was issued in 2005. The United States must make a formal extradition request within 40 days to have Polanski extradited and stand trial."

Asked Switzerland specifically I meant.

Alfred that sounds a bit like law for law's sake, doesn't it? I'm not actually all that opposed to what's happening to Polanski, I just don't see the point. In effective terms, not moral ones. Otoh (just to fudge some more) I read his autobiography a while and dude does love his teenage girls, so this may well be preventing future crimes of this type, or punishing several that've gone unseen

Look, by any standard he's had a wretched life: Holocaust, his wife and unborn child getting disembowled. I'm sure he loves Emmanuelle Beart and their lovely girls.

Alfred that sounds a bit like law for law's sake, doesn't it?

This is redundant, no? There's an open investigation; prosecutors want to close it.

Eh maybe. He married Emmanuelle Beart? Hope he gets the chair

i don't think it's really doing anything for society (or whatever you want to call it) to punish him now except for trying to show you can't get away with this. but all these dumb articles say is he's already had a hard life and it's been such a long time and this is useless. but that could be true of so many people and no one writes articles ranting about how prosecutors are "harassing" them. he's not special. even if he did make chinatown.

E Beart ref is puzzling me now, but yes she and her's are likeable I spose

I am certain there are many who will harrumph that, following this arrest, justice was done at last. But Polanski is 76. To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system. If he weren't famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.

^^^^ this.

it's also pretty shitty that the victim and her family will have to go through reliving the details all over again.

yeah well a non-famous person wouldn't have gotten tipped off throughout the years about apprehension efforts and thus been able to avoid capture for 20+ years

If he weren't famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.

Um, if he weren't famous, there is no way he would have gotten away with it for so long.

oh xpost

btw it's a real big fallacy imo that a non-famous person would've been forgotten about - i think shows on court tv & shit make it pretty apparent that cops & prosecutors forever hold grudges over unsolved cases & fugitives - the show FUGITIVE TASK FORCE on a&e makes it kind of apparent that the swat team & us govt will hunt your ass down over a minor parole violation let alone jumping ship like polanski did

and on top of that all, famous people & people with money have such an advantage in the legal system (and socially when it comes to stigma over crime) than non-famous people

What a waste of fucking time, says someone currently in a court case cos his parole officer fucked up his address and went to the wrong place

Hey really, isn't "he assaulted a really young girl" the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Polanski? Much as I like a few of his films it always has been for me

As reagrds stigma. It took his autobiog for me to know about the Holocaust thing.

funny how all those cons on the megan's law website aren't rich & famous people

the argument about "what good does it do prosecuting him now" seems sort of silly to me. he's not that much older than bernie madoff. old people can go to prison. (although i bet polanski won't actually do any time out of all this.) i know, the difference is that polanski's crime was years ago, but it's entirely his fault that there's been such a long gap.

Bernie Madoff was actively committing his crimes. That's kinda stupid.

bullshit, that investment cash threw itself at him

uh-uh, madoff essentially turned himself in. his crimes were done. it's not like anyone was going to invest any money with him again. what's the point in prosecuting an old man?

madoff has suffered enough, he can't even visit wall street anymore

Hahahaha I agree actually, don't see one xp

forget it jake it's wall street

he didn't even get to attend an ivy league school, the pain and suffering far outweighs his crime

j0rdan otm in this thread.

No doubt Polanski could have settled this one way or another earlier had he not, you know, plead guilty (to a much lesser charge than what was originally filed) and fled the country. Because once he did that, how could any prosecutor possibly shrug and say, "eh, what's in the past is in the past?" That's some red flag shit, and what kind of precedent would it set to let such a public figure off the hook for no good reason?

What would he be coming back to the U.S. for, exactly? His sentencing? Jail time? I can't imagine this just simply picks up where he left it off. Taking into account all the stuff surrounding this case for the past three decades, the best scenario would probably be some sort of retrial, and he could take his chances with a jury rather than that (late) crazy judge. Maybe Gov. Arnold would commute his sentence. Either way, I can imagine Polanski coming out ahead in the appeals process, one way or another. But win or not in the end, an asterisk will always be affixed to his name.

woah easy. he didn't do no steroids, buddy.

could he have still made chinatown if he HADNT sodomized a 13 yr old? im not so sure

j0rdan otm in this thread.

― deej, Sunday, September 27, 2009 9:03 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This whole case, this whole argument is so not at all as interesting as The Tenant. Great movie. Go see it.

Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.

"In the same way as there is a generous America which we love, there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening, and it is this America which has now shown us its face," he said.

there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening

yeah, it's called north america

In a few months Interpol will bust Mitterand while feeding Camembert to a fifteen-year-old boy in a stable.

The age of consent for being fed cheese by an older man is fourteen in France, IIRC.

Memories.

There is no way Polanski will be extradited. The French don't want it, and they will twist whichever arms necessary.

The age of consent for being fed cheese by an older man is fourteen in France, IIRC

not true, although there is no age limit if you do it at home with your family during meals.