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Roman Polanski arrested (discuss)...

Anyone know why he was offered the plea deal in the first place? If the case was as open and shut as everybody seems to say (and I'm not disputing that), why was the court even willing to entertain the idea of tossing almost all the charges?
 
The French culture and communications minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said he "learned with astonishment" of Polanski's arrest. He expressed solidarity with Polanski's family and said "he wants to remind everyone that Roman Polanski benefits from great general esteem" and has "exceptional artistic creation and human qualities."
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/28/zurich.roman.polanski.arrested/index.html

Which has nothing to do with the fact that he committed a crime and was never punished for it.

I wonder what French Justice minister has to say about it, after all, it's his jurisdiction, Mitterand should shut up and stick to culture and the arts.


"He's a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago. What a shame for Switzerland," said photographer Otto Weisser, a friend of Polanski.
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A little mistake?
 
Yoink said:
Anyone know why he was offered the plea deal in the first place? If the case was as open and shut as everybody seems to say (and I'm not disputing that), why was the court even willing to entertain the idea of tossing almost all the charges?
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Because California juries have a history of letting celebrity criminal defendants off.
 
Darat said:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/...lanski_arrest/

You might have to be registered to get to this, but it pretty well puts it in perspective.
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I think that puts the facts and the emphasis in the right order.
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You know, this reminds me of the south park NAMBLA episode....

At the end, the NAMBLA guys are arrested. The soft music starts up (as they do in south park whenever someone makes some sort of moral point) and the guy tries to justify their actions, and talks about freedom and choices.

Kyle: "Dude. You have sex with children!"
Stan: "Yeah, you know, we believe in equality for everybody, and tolerance, and all that gay stuff, but dude, f___ you!"
 
Pardalis said:
A little mistake?
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Hey he is no where near as bad as Issei Sagawa, who in france murdered and ate a college student. After being deported after being found legaly insane, he checked himself out of the mental hospital in Japan.

So in the scale of things, yes a little mistake.
 
Segnosaur said:
You know, this reminds me of the south park NAMBLA episode....

At the end, the NAMBLA guys are arrested. The soft music starts up (as they do in south park whenever someone makes some sort of moral point) and the guy tries to justify their actions, and talks about freedom and choices.

Kyle: "Dude. You have sex with children!"
Stan: "Yeah, you know, we believe in equality for everybody, and tolerance, and all that gay stuff, but dude, f___ you!"
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Hey what do you have against the North American Marlon Brando Lookalikes Association?
 
Why can't anyone outright admit that the arrest and any ensuing court proceedings were and will be carried out because this d-bag had the temerity to skip town and stay out of reach for three decades, and not to preserve the integrity of the 13-year-old girl who's now in her 40s? Why the absolutist emphasis on moral outrage when the motive of a comeuppance for this infamous avoider of the law seems more glaringly obvious? It's not like one could argue an exception to Polanski's ensuing comeuppance-- after all, it's well-known that he did rape a girl. I just seem to be getting the impression that there's more focus being put on the moral outrage of the crime than the fact that this bag-o-**** thought he could continue to get away with it.

Does the idea of wanting him to get what's coming to him seem too petty for folks here, or in the general media-viewing communities? Not high-minded enough to hold in esteem with the coming satisfaction of him facing his day in court?
 
Piscivore said:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/...lanski_arrest/

You might have to be registered to get to this, but it pretty well puts it in perspective.
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I can't see that at work, is that the arrest report? Because if it is not, that's available on The Smoking Gun.
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The link goes to an article called "Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child".

It covers the details of the crime, and addresses some of the arguments people have made for leniency (he lost faimily in the holocaust, the crime wasn't serious, that he's already 'suffered enough', etc.)
 
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Darat said:
Listening to a bloke who was billed as an "expert in the history of Hollywood" on the radio this morning and he made the claim that, at the time of the offence, it was apparently not out-of-the-unusual for the "Hollywood set" (!), they were teams of lawyers and PR folk that would be going around "cleaning up" after the Hollywood set, what was unusual was that a blind eye wasn't turned to it.
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I seem to recall that there was a scene in the Godfather (the book, not the movie) where a very pretty (and very underaged) girl is being led crying out of the house of the movie director by her mother, who's telling the girl that this will be great for her career. IIRC the book came out in 1969 or so. This is the same movie director who gets the horse's head in his bed.

Incidentally, I did some googling for a picture of the girl and found this. She was certainly a pretty girl, but also obviously way too young.
 
I have to say I'm pretty baffled by some of the quotes that i've heard coming out of france, both from members of the public and authority figures:

1. it was a long time ago, just forget it....

2. the prosecution reneged on a plea bargin deal so he was right to flee sentencing......

3. the girl in question just wants to move on with her life.......

4. he's a really talented director

5. it was part of the 60s/70s sexual revolution, these things happened back then....

6. it was the girls' mothers' fault. She wanted her daughter to have a part in his movies......

none of them seem to stand even the most cursory counter-argument, so is the general reaction in france really one of support? It seems pretty incredible if so. Those continentals....
 
Brainster said:
I seem to recall that there was a scene in the Godfather (the book, not the movie) where a very pretty (and very underaged) girl is being led crying out of the house of the movie director by her mother, who's telling the girl that this will be great for her career. IIRC the book came out in 1969 or so. This is the same movie director who gets the horse's head in his bed.
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It is a deleted scene on the DVD too, IIRC.
 
andyandy said:
I have to say I'm pretty baffled by some of the quotes that i've heard coming out of france, both from members of the public and authority figures:

1. it was a long time ago, just forget it....

2. the prosecution reneged on a plea bargin deal so he was right to flee sentencing......

3. the girl in question just wants to move on with her life.......

4. he's a really talented director

5. it was part of the 60s/70s sexual revolution, these things happened back then....

6. it was the girls' mothers' fault. She wanted her daughter to have a part in his movies......

none of them seem to stand even the most cursory counter-argument, so is the general reaction in france really one of support? It seems pretty incredible if so. Those continentals....
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Anecdotally... yeah, the overwhelming opinion around here seems to be that he should be let go because he's a great artistic talent and things were different then.

Personally I'd have sent him to the scaffold 30 years ago, but I'm a bit of an old reactionary like that.
 
Yoink said:
Anyone know why he was offered the plea deal in the first place? If the case was as open and shut as everybody seems to say (and I'm not disputing that), why was the court even willing to entertain the idea of tossing almost all the charges?
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Prosecutors will often plead clearly guilty defendants to avoid expenses and even a slight chance of acquittal. There is no such thing as a slam dunk case when you have a lay jury and a sympathetic or famous defendant.
 
I did a bit more Googling around about the case. It seems to me that the plea deal would have been offered because the elements of the case that are provoking the most outrage in this thread (and would have borne the most severe legal consequences) would also have been very difficult to prove in court. What Polanski pleaded guilty to was consensual sex with a minor. We certainly have her testimony to the effect that it was not consensual, but in a courtroom that would have been essentially a matter of "he said/she said." I don't know that you could argue such bare assertion amounts to "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." The rape wasn't reported until some time after it had occurred (the victim herself never voluntarily reported the rape; her sister overheard her talking to her boyfriend about it on the telephone and told her mother; you can certainly imagine a defense attorney coming on strong with the suggestion that she was simply too ashamed to admit to her mother that she had had sex consensually; mention of the 17-yr-old boyfriend would probably have hurt the victim's case with the jury, too).

All in all it looks like a plea deal for 'just' the statutory rape charge was probably a sensible outcome--no point putting the young victim through all that trauma if it wasn't likely to result in a conviction. I wonder what a typical sentence for statutory rape was in the mid 70s? It's not clear to me that the plea deal agreement of "time served" would have been all that far out of whack with typical (non celebrity) practice back then.

I want to stress that I'm not saying here that I think Polanski should go scott free or that I believe that Samatha Gailey was making a false accusation. I'm simply saying that--as is all too often the case with charges of rape--we don't really have enought evidence to determine the question of "consent." Is it possible that a thirteen year old girl lied about consensual sex because she thought her mother would give her hell if she admitted it? Yes. Is it possible that Polanksi simply raped her despite her very clear demands that he stop? Yes. Do we have any evidence at all that would help us determine those questions? No.

We should, then, confine ourselves to the only crime that can be proven; unlawful sex with a minor. A question for any lawyers out there: I assume that sentencing guidelines have changed for this crime since the act was committed. Is Polanski, if brought back to trial and found guilty, subject to whatever sentencing guidelines that are in force today, or is he only subject to whatever penalties were in place at the time he committed the crime?
 
skeptical said:
Prosecutors will often plead clearly guilty defendants to avoid expenses and even a slight chance of acquittal. There is no such thing as a slam dunk case when you have a lay jury and a sympathetic or famous defendant.
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Or, in the case of OJ Simpson, a lying, racist cop.
 
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