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

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-farr/leniency-for-polanski_b_301269.html

But the story of what Polanski suffered even before the unspeakable trauma of having his pregnant wife Sharon Tate butchered in the spooky twilight of the turbulent Sixties makes me believe that overall, he's as much victim as predator himself.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/09/roman-polanski-still-being-stalked-by-la-county-prosecutors.html

I watched Repulsion a few weeks ago at a friend's house. He told me we had watched it like 7 or 8 years earlier, to my denial. Only after by its end did I realized I had seen it. How the hell does someone forget seeing Repulsion?

I love Polanski's films

and quite honestly don't understand what the fuck yall are on about.

He drugged and fucked a 13 year old girl and now he's being caught up on it thanks to Swiss/US cooperation.

no i know that. i mean cmon what's the fuss on either side.

dude are you fucking serious

Yeah I know, sorry. I agree fwiw, esp as the victim doesn't care anymore

Why're you so worked up about it, Jordan?

because i think it's ridiculous that people are attempting to argue against a child rapist being arrested

Yeah I know, sorry. I agree fwiw, esp as the victim doesn't care anymore

― Niles Caulder, Sunday, September 27, 2009 9:40 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah this is a great point - just make sure you do something so terrible to a person that they would rather it not be brought up again for fear of embarrassment

Eh, I wasn't a child at 13 going on 14. And I'd already been felt up by my creepy greatuncle a few times. Nothing happened to him, I don't care.

It's brought up in every article about Polanski ever!

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.

i don't know, j0rdan, i understand getting worked up about shit like this, but why don't you join the fucking task force in your town that runs all the registered sex offenders out of town? i'm not saying that it isn't a serious crime, but polanski is just not the best person to 'make an example of' at this point...

to me, it's like extraditing dudes who were 'present' as lowly first officers at bergen/belsen. i mean what the fuck, most of these guys can't get hard-ons and walk with canes, focus on the motherfuckers who are white supremacists/ZOGers/SPLC-targets RIGHT NOW.

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

i'm pretty sure roman polanski didn't watch a 13 year old get raped but i'll go check wikipedia again just to make sure

Niles Caulder, the David Brooks/Joe Klein of ILX.

forget it jake its chinatown

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

So if you can evade punishment long enough, no harm no foul?

i do think there's a difference between condemning what he did, which like everyone does, and arguing that the justice system is fulfilling its mission by arresting him 30 years later.

i mean this is the law so whatever i guess. but i'm not really sure if it is "justice"

it's just fucked up because he's been in plain sight for so long

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