Roman Polanski arrested (discuss)...

[Belz...]

Polanksi pled guilty to having sex with her. He did not plead guilty to raping her.

Tell us, Kev, how old was she, already ?

 

[HeyLeroy]

Bolding mine.

Do you have evidence that was the only reason they accepted the deal?

No.

Why?

Was there somewhere you were going with this?

 

[Information Analyst]

You seem to be implying Polanski didn't deliberately have sex with a 13 year-old, when he most certainly did.

If I was implying that, why would I have also said I think he should get what turns out to be the maximum sentence for what he pleaded guilty to? Gosh, I'm such an "apologist"....

Lame "impaired judgement" arguments aside, Polanski was known to have a proclivity for young girls, admitted on the legal record he was aware of his victim's age, and to this day has not expressed remorse for his actions.

"Was known"? Where is the evidence for that? Hindsight doesn't count.

He knowingly and willfully raped a 13 year-old girl. That he might have been high at the time is immaterial.

Well, given that nobody can prove what would have happened had not the champagne and drugs been present, nobody can say that.

 

[Belz...]

Which he also took himself.

Well, that settles it!

 

[LostAngeles]

I suggest starting a new thread rather than hijacking this one, which is about Roman Polanski.

There are very good reasons as to why I'm asking that. Don't evade the questions.

I'm certain you know where I'm going with this (hell, it's in my next response). Answer the questions.

Legal contract, vote, military , are not comparable with sex (if that is what you want to compare to) those are activities you are allowed to enter when you get the status of legal adult citizen. 18 year old in my country.

Sex (and mariage), drinking age, cigarette are individual/personal activity which can and are legal when the individual is consenting. So I would place them at all the same age, although a different age than you become citizen (so not 18).
Sex is placed at my country at 15, I would tend to place them at 16 when an adult is involved, because i tend to think before 16 most teenager are not able to make a good decision (aka 99 year old person with a consenting 15 would be a no-no, but with a consenting 16 their problem) but more or less free of repercussion when both are under or equal 15 and above or equal 12 because you can't legislate youth (try ANYWAY to forbid two 13 year old to play doctor... good luck with that, if you make it unlawful you only make teenager marked for life for stuff which are basically OK between consenting people).

Now if you ask for my personal taste (and not what i think is legal) when i was young and good looking enough I flirted only with older women (I won the jackpot far more rarely than i wished, but often enough that some on this board would have called those women statutory rapist). Today when I see a daughter/mother pair, the daughter is quasi invisible to me, the hot mama feeling all my eye. So yeah, I am the sort of pervert which are only interrested in 35-45 year old old (big breasted) women. But neither do i see some of the reaction of the poster here as warranted.

Here's the thing: sex has rather serious potential consequences (as does smoking and other drug use). Serious consequences are linked with serious responsibilities. Entering into a legal contract, voting, and military service are all serious responsibilities. We do not allow minors to engage in those activities for very much the same reason (as I mention below) they don't go through the regular criminal justice system: they are not capable of being fully responsible. Are there individual variations with respect to awareness and capacity to fully assume responsibility? Yes. Is there a good way to allow for that individual variation while still protecting those that need it? Unlikely.

I don't advocate the prosecution of sexual exploration between minors or given a 2-3 year age difference in the case of teens. When adults, who are responsible and do have power over minors, take advantage of a minor's incapacity, then we have a problem.

Contrasted with her willingly going with him for a second photo-shoot without anyone else - not least her mother - accompanying her, undressing for some of the photos, drinking the champagne, taking the qualude they shared, etc.

So she asked for it?

Does the etc include her insisting that she had to go home? That she stopped fighting because she was afraid of him? That she tried to refuse him in the jacuzzi? That she kept pulling away and saying, "No?"

Technically, I would say not. Who counts every change of position as a separate sex act?

Technically, he did. I'm not talking the, "change of position." Did you read her testimony? She said he raped her twice.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskib15.html

[After the first rape, someone came back to the house]

Q: At that time what was happening?
A: He had walked up to the door and kind of opened it up a crack and talked to her. And I got up and put on my underwear and started walking towards the door.
Q: What happened then?
A: He sat me back down.
Q: What happened then?
A: Then he started to have intercourse with me again and then he just stopped.

Applying a bit of set theory there and I can count two rapes. How about you?

I don't see anyone "excusing" him on those grounds, only people pointing out that you can't expect someone to come out of experiences like that as well-balanced as someone who didn't go through them.

Well, I'm sure if you contact any of the organizations that support Holocaust survivors, I'm sure they'll happily detail all the rapes and other crimes the survivors committed.

Or, in other words: provide evidence that murder and genocide make one a rapist, please.

On the other hand, at what age is a child legally responsible for a crime they commit? In the United States it seems it is between 6 and 12.

Not only does that not answer the questions I asked, but fails to consider the juvenile court system where the children are held accountable for their actions as children, that is not fully responsible.

 

[John Jones]

In most jurisdictions, someone who kills because they run someone over while they are drunk would not punished as harshly as someone who gets into their car stone-cold sober and runs someone over deliberately, would they?

False dichotomy.

Being drunk is no defense for driving drunk, or for accidentally killing someone while driving drunk.

They are typically punished more harshly than a sober person would be for accidentally killing someone while driving sober.

 

[John Jones]

Well, given that nobody can prove what would have happened had not the champagne and drugs been present, nobody can say that.

It's irrelevant. He did what he did. The fact that he voluntarily took and administered drugs and alcohol does not mitigate that fact.

 

[headscratcher4]

"On the other hand, at what age is a child legally responsible for a crime they commit? In the United States it seems it is between 6 and 12."

what does this have to do with anything? Are you seriously trying to suggest that a 13 year old --even without the statutory prohibition against her being able to consent to sex -- is culpable/responsible vs. the sexual advances of a 40 year old man? Even without the law's protections, your going to stack her understanding and appreciation for what Polanski was going to do with/to her up against his force and power as an older, stronger adult male? Is this the "well, she wanted it a little bit ..." argument...or better still: any resonable 40 year old male would have understood that she wanted it a little and saw that as licence to proceed?

 

[Information Analyst]

This is getting boring now, not least because I've already made it very plain that not only do I think Polanski should be punished for what he did, but also quantified that punishment, which turns out to be the maximum he could get for what he pleaded guilty to. That so many posters keep ignoring that says more about their opinions than mine. I'll leave them to their reassuringly black-and-white view of the world.

 

[johnny karate]

If I was implying that, why would I have also said I think he should get what turns out to be the maximum sentence for what he pleaded guilty to? Gosh, I'm such an "apologist"....

You made an analogy between what Polanski did and the involuntary actions of a drunk person. That implies what Polanski did was involuntary. If that implication was not your intent, then you should have chosen a better analogy.

"Was known"? Where is the evidence for that? Hindsight doesn't count.

Polanski had a romantic relationship with Nastassja Kinski when she was 15.

Polanski made the following remarks in a 1979 interview:

If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!

Polanski made the following admission during his plea hearing:

Deputy District Attorney: On March 10th, 1977, the day you had sexual intercourse with the complaining witness, how old did you believe her to be?

Polanski: She was 13.

Deputy District Attorney: Did you understand she was 13 on March 10th, 1977, when you had sexual intercourse with her?

Polanski: Yes.

Well, given that nobody can prove what would have happened had not the champagne and drugs been present, nobody can say that.

We have Polanksi's own words and actions upon which to base a sound conclusion. If you're seriously arguing that because we can't know with 100% certainty what exactly happened then we can't know at all, I would direct you to your local community college for a first-year Philosophy course to debate such specious nonsense.

 

[varwoche]

I think it would be naive not to recognise that there was a lot about the girl's behaviour that Polanski took as a green flag

The slut asked for it.

Seems reasonable to me. I suppose I could have been less provocative with a word choice along the lines of "She asked for it" but that's a fine point.

 

[johnny karate]

This is getting boring now, not least because I've already made it very plain that not only do I think Polanski should be punished for what he did, but also quantified that punishment, which turns out to be the maximum he could get for what he pleaded guilty to. That so many posters keep ignoring that says more about their opinions than mine. I'll leave them to their reassuringly black-and-white view of the world.

You're making certain arguments, and from I can see, most people are addressing those arguments. If for some bizarre reason you are offended that people would do so, then stop making those arguments.

 

[Information Analyst]

Bottom line: I say he should get four years.

End of story.

 

[Information Analyst]

You're making certain arguments, and from I can see, most people are addressing those arguments. If for some bizarre reason you are offended that people would do so, then stop making those arguments.

Thoughtcrime.

 

[Deranged]

We all know that he did ****, but not rape, a 13-year old when he was 44. But the story took place more than 30 years ago. Plus the judge game, thanks to Anglo-Saxon system: case dismissed, then not dismissed.

If the US starts witch hunting, they really can`t stop.

Bobby Fischer II saga.

Edited by Locknar: 

Breach of Rule 10 removed; please do not attempt to avoid the autocensor.

I'm certainly not condoning his behavior but was she bombed by the pool?
My best friend in HS said she was out at night dating and drinking at 13. Do we know if she struggled violently against him? I never read what she had to say and I hope she wasn't traumatized.

 

[John Jones]

This is getting boring now, not least because I've already made it very plain that not only do I think Polanski should be punished for what he did, but also quantified that punishment, which turns out to be the maximum he could get for what he pleaded guilty to. That so many posters keep ignoring that says more about their opinions than mine. I'll leave them to their reassuringly black-and-white view of the world.

I didn't ignore it. I failed to comment on it.

None of that explains your apparent belief that his acts should be mitigated because of his consumption of drugs, or other factors under his control.

 

[John Jones]

Thoughtcrime.

It's not crimethink, it's faulty reasoning.

 

[John Jones]

I'm certainly not condoning his behavior but was she bombed by the pool?
My best friend in HS said she was out at night dating and drinking at 13. Do we know if she struggled violently against him? I never read what she had to say and I hope she wasn't traumatized.

Her testimony has been reported here a number of times. She said no repeatedly. She didn't resist physically because she was afraid, and out-muscled.

Polanski was 44 years old, and she was 13. He admitted in court that he knew she was 13. That's criminal behavior on his part. Period

 

[Bosozoku]

It really is irrelevant whether she resisted Polanski, or even if he thought she was resisting him - the statute does not apply a mental state to the crime. If you have sex with someone under 16 in California and you are over the age of 21, it is statutory rape, end of story.

Let's imagine Polanski was temporarily blind, the victim disguised her voice to make herself sound in her 30s, and told him she consented; it still wouldn't matter. His mental state is not an element of the crime. Under this statute, the fact that he committed the act, regardless of what he was thinking, is all that needed to be established.

 

[Checkmite]

In most jurisdictions, someone who kills because they run someone over while they are drunk would not punished as harshly as someone who gets into their car stone-cold sober and runs someone over deliberately, would they?

No, but somebody who gets drunk before he runs someone over deliberately would be.