Roman Polanski arrested (discuss)...

[johnny karate]

Dodge noted.

 

[Cleon]

Polanski's first bid at release has been denied.

(AP) Roman Polanski lost his first bid to win his freedom Tuesday as the Swiss Justice Ministry rejected an appeal by the 76-year-old to be immediately released from prison, an official said.

"We continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight," said ministry spokesman Folco Galli, explaining the decision.

I wonder how they could've possibly come to that opinion...

 

[Belz...]

CINNA THE POET: Truly, my name is Cinna.

First Citizen: Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator.

CINNA THE POET: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

Fourth Citizen: Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

CINNA THE POET: I am not Cinna the conspirator.

Fourth Citizen: It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck but his
name out of his heart, and turn him going.

Well, I'm sold.

 

[marksman]

Tests for semen in her vagina and anus also came back negative, as I stated in my earlier post.

That's not found anywhere on The Smoking Gun. What is your evidence for this?

Her statement claimed that Polanski had anal sex to climax with her, but there was no sign of anal injury consistent with rape

But the lack of injury does not mean a lack of rape. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The wikipedia article on rape kits seems to indicate that semen can be detected for up to 72 hours after a rape

Those are modern rape kits. Do you have evidence of the state of semen detection and analysis as it existed in the 1970's?

I have not been able to locate a scholarly source on the degree of injury you would expect to see if an anal rape has occurred.

In which case the absence of anal tearing does not contradict her story.

My understanding was that semen was not found in her undergarments as such, but rather a chemical trace consistent with and highly indicative of semen was found.

It doesn't matter. There is nothing that contradicts her story. Since Polanski pled guilty and then fled the jurisdiction, no further analysis is needed and the evidence has been spoliated by time due to his own actions. The presumption of innocence ended when he agreed to plead guilty. Any degradation of the evidence after that point is now on his shoulders.

At any rate, even if all the evidence is gone, the issue is not whether the State can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt because Polanski already pled guilty to the crime for which he is going to be sentenced.

The issue was, as you stated "the conflict between the girl's statement and the forensic evidence in the Polanski case". You have not shown a conflict between the forensic evidence and the girl's story. The lack of anal tearing does not conflict with her story unless anal tearing is found in all cases of non-consensual sodomy (and you admit you have no evidence of that). Even if there was no evidence of semen, it does not conflict with her story unless you can show evidence that, under the technology that existed in the 1970's, semen is always found in such circumstances. I don't believe you have shown such evidence.

So don't shift the goalposts from whether the girl's story has been contradicted by forensic evidence (it has not) to whether the state could prove beyond a reasonable doubt based on the scant evidence we now have 30 years after the fact, that Polanski had intercourse with the girl. That's an entirely different (and utterly irrelevant) issue.

Since she was sexually active I don't think that it follows (certainly not to the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt) that those traces came from Polanski that night rather than from her boyfriend at some other time.

Irrelevant. you said the forensics contradicted her story, not that there might be alternative theories to explain the forensic evidence.

The complete lack of anal injuries or sperm in the anus is simply inconsistent with the claim that she was anally raped by Polanski until he climaxed.

It is no inconsistent unless you can show that anal rape and climax always results in anal tearing and semen (and you can actually show a report that said no semen was found).

You have a curious case of tunnel vision. Why is your sole concern "whether he committed any form of rape", as opposed to achieving the best understanding we can of what the available evidence says?

I don't think it fruitful to try to extrapolate from the "available evidence" says, since the available evidence is hearsay. We don't actually have the test results. We only have another investigator's summary of the test results.

I get the impression from you and Johnny Karate that you're treating this thread as some kind of juvenile pissing contest

No, I'm just trying to show that the forensic evidence doesn't say what you claim. If that makes you feel juvenile, don't blame it on me.

you're here to prove that Polanski's a rapist and I'm cast as the guy trying to get Polanski off.

Nope. I'm just showing that the forensic evidence doesn't show what you claimed it did. (i.e., inconsistency with the girl's statement).

I'm not trying to convict Polanski. I'm not casting you as a Polanski exonerator. I'm only holding you to the words you wrote. Feel free to retract those words at any time.

 

[Matthew Best]

Tests for semen in her vagina and anus also came back negative, as I stated in my earlier post.

That's not found anywhere on The Smoking Gun. What is your evidence for this?

It's on the Smoking Gun - here

"Vaginal and anal slides were taken which according to the Los Angeles Police Department criminalist were negative, were tested negative for semen."

 

[Pardalis]

Boy, this thread has taken a turn for the worse.

You're discussing anal semen samples now? This is a new low.

 

[Belz...]

Depends on your fetish

 

[Sledge]

Really, who cares what semen was found where? We know, by his own admission, that Polanski raped a child. Arguing about what hole/s he did it in seems... redundant.

 

[johnny karate]

Really, who cares what semen was found where? We know, by his own admission, that Polanski raped a child. Arguing about what hole/s he did it in seems... redundant.

Exactly. I'm still waiting for Kevin to explain how focusing on the sodomy aspect is at all relevant.

 

[marksman]

It's on the Smoking Gun - here

"Vaginal and anal slides were taken which according to the Los Angeles Police Department criminalist were negative, were tested negative for semen."

Ah. Thanks. Missed that.

 

[gtc]

I wouldn't expect a 13 year old child's testimony to be wholly accurate in every last detail. Particularly not if that child has been subjected to the trauma of rape after having been drugged and fed alcohol.

This is one of the very good reasons for keeping a blanket ban on sexual intercourse between adults and children. The perp still goes to jail, even if the defense can shred the testimony of a child on whether consent existed. By going for a plea bargain straight to statutory rape (or whatever it is referred to in a particular penal code) the child is spared the added trauma of having to face down a defense lawyer.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

That's not found anywhere on The Smoking Gun. What is your evidence for this?

As noted, it is there and you failed to read it.

But the lack of injury does not mean a lack of rape. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So if I claimed that I was shot squarely in my unprotected leg at close range with a large handgun yesterday, but I have no sign of injury, the absence of evidence is not evidence that it never happened?

As stated here, "In older children, in whom there is less disproportion between the size of the assailant’s penis and the child’s genital structures, minor injuries usually result. These include vulvar bruising and abrasions, mucosal tears of the introitus, hymen and vaginal walls, or bruising of the anal canal and mucosal tears (first- degree tears). In more severe cases, usually in younger children or in more brutal attacks, the vaginal injury may extend into the adjacent tissue and may involve the perivaginal and trans- verse perineal muscles but spares the sphincter complexes (second-degree tears). ".

If an anal rape happened as described, there would usually be tell-tale injuries. If you can find any source stating that an anal rape as described in the girl's statement could possibly occur without leaving any signs please link to it. Nothing I can find about anal sex or anal rape even indicates that the possibility exists, and as stated before the hypothesis that makes sense to me is that the answer to that question is hard to find because it's such an incredibly ignorant question to ask in the first place.

You might as well ask "Can you shove a shampoo bottle all the way up your nose without injuring yourself?".

Those are modern rape kits. Do you have evidence of the state of semen detection and analysis as it existed in the 1970's?

My understanding of the procedure is that you take a swab from the relevant area and you stick it under a microscope to look for sperm. They had microscopes that could resolve sperm in the 1700s. This isn't modern DNA analysis we're talking about. Sperm lived just as long in the anal cavity back then as they do today.

Unless you think that human physiology or the laws of physics changed markedly in the last thirty years you are clutching at straws.

It doesn't matter. There is nothing that contradicts her story. Since Polanski pled guilty and then fled the jurisdiction, no further analysis is needed and the evidence has been spoliated by time due to his own actions. The presumption of innocence ended when he agreed to plead guilty. Any degradation of the evidence after that point is now on his shoulders.

At any rate, even if all the evidence is gone, the issue is not whether the State can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt because Polanski already pled guilty to the crime for which he is going to be sentenced.

That curious tunnel-vision is back. What kind of skeptic do you pretend to be? "No further analysis is needed?". What the hell?

It looks to me that rather than actually think, you're desperately hunting for any excuse to avoid looking at the actual evidence. Your current excuse is "Look, he's guilty of something, because he pleaded guilty. No further analysis is needed! None at all! We shouldn't even look at the evidence! Isn't it enough that he's guilty of something? Stop thinking, quick!".

The issue was, as you stated "the conflict between the girl's statement and the forensic evidence in the Polanski case". You have not shown a conflict between the forensic evidence and the girl's story. The lack of anal tearing does not conflict with her story unless anal tearing is found in all cases of non-consensual sodomy (and you admit you have no evidence of that). Even if there was no evidence of semen, it does not conflict with her story unless you can show evidence that, under the technology that existed in the 1970's, semen is always found in such circumstances. I don't believe you have shown such evidence.

You are in outright denial, aren't you?

I don't think it fruitful to try to extrapolate from the "available evidence" says, since the available evidence is hearsay. We don't actually have the test results. We only have another investigator's summary of the test results.

Yup, outright denial. When in the history of this forum has anyone ever said before "We can't trust second-hand reports of forensic examinations, we need to have the primary data! Therefore we should totally ignore them!".

What's so hard about admitting that the available forensic evidence supports Polanski's statements on these issues much better than it supports the girl's? As you've pointed out repeatedly this doesn't get Polanski off the hook, legally or morally, for providing a minor with alcohol, or for providing a minor with drugs, or for having sex with a minor. You can still burn the witch as much as you like on those charges. Is it really worth completely blowing your credibility as a skeptic or even a thinking human being to deny the evidence on the separate issue of whether anal rape took place as described?

 

[Checkmite]

Perhaps 1.01 to 1. It would be 2 to 1 if Huston witnessed the entire thing and corroborated the girl's testimony.

Why did Huston have to witness the entire thing? An independent witness states that after the sex, the victim was not happy. That's important.

Believe it or not the JREF forums is not my blog. I don't post everything that crosses my computer screen here, even if it's relevant to an acrimonious discussion I had here a year ago (or whenever).

Fair enough.

What are you insinuating anyway? Would it make a difference if I reviewed the literature and changed my mind on that particular issue last week instead of months ago, and if so why?

The point that you're deliberately ignoring is that my judgment and subsequent treatment of you is based on your extensive posting history. That you claim to have changed your mind last week (or whenever) does not speak to whether my analysis of your earlier statements was or was not justified, and so really doesn't matter.

Okay, suppose we've got two teenagers, Al and Bill. They have this conversation:

AL: Bill, if your sister wasn't your sister, would you sleep with her?
BILL: Sure, she's hot.
AL: EWWWW! SHE'S YOUR SISTER YOU SICKO!

What's going on there? It's not that Bill is sick, it's that Al is thick. He's unable to remember the hypothetical scenario from five seconds ago and thinks he can legitimately apply Al's answer to the non-hypothetical world.

Compare:

GTC: Would you sleep with an implausibly mature twelve year old, if the relationship was mutually fulfilling and in no way exploitative?
DD: Sure, why not?
GTC: EWWWW! SHE'S TWELVE YOU SICKO!

Same problem. You want your witch hunt so badly you forget the constraints of the hypothetical scenario. You're making exactly the same cognitive error as the people who lambasted DD in the first place.

It's not the same problem. In your first example, you made the subject NOT Bill's sister - the actual factuality of which makes wanting to have sex with her verboten. The fact that in the hypothetical scenario she is no longer Bill's sister makes the reaction incongruous. What makes DD's claim revolting is the fact that the subject is just 12 years old. Since in the "hypothetical scenario", the subject is STILL 12 years old, the reason for the idea being revolting has not been removed. Somehow you and DD thought that giving this girl implausibly mature characteristics would somehow make a difference - but it didn't. Still 12 is still 12, and squick resulted.

Yes. You are beginning to grasp the scientific method. If you have enough properly collected, first-hand anecdotes from an unbiased sample you can reach a tipping point where confidence in the data is justified. If you don't have enough such anecdotes you just have worthless anecdotes.

An unbiased sample? How could a traumatized victim of sexual abuse not be biased?

That's too stupid to dignify with a response. Act your age.

What "age" is that? The only part of the entire post that connects with the present topic, and you wave it off. It isn't stupid at all: if as you say a 13-year-old is "well able" to decide by themselves whether sex is good for them, why aren't they able to decide when sex is bad for them without needing "proof" or corroboration?

If you care enough go back and read the threads that got linked to before, I'm pretty sure all the links are there. Or do your own research. You've demonstrated enough bad faith so far I'm in no way inclined to do your homework for you about an issue which is mostly irrelevant to the Polanski case.

Has this got anything to do with Polanski, or have you abandoned relevance completely in favour of trolling for some response you can get outraged about? Also, the claim that one incident of child sexual abuse is "okay" is completely your own invention, and trying to attribute it to me is both disgusting and dishonest.

You insisted that I post links to your past threads, Kevin, after I explicitly said I did not want to distract from the topic. This diversion was created at your insistence - you don't get to play the "irrelevance" card, because I already did.

All we can say is that in properly controlled studies the evidence of harm does not rise to a statistically significant level.

That's nonsense. Didn't you just say you changed your mind about this issue? Do you even have your beliefs straight?

Nice try, but there was a point to that challenge. The point was that when you actually had to explain my position in your own words you got it almost completely wrong, and when you were corrected you had nothing left to be outraged about. I had the evidence on my side at the time, you have certainly not been able to show otherwise, and I'm perfectly comfortable to let the record show that I proportioned my belief to the available relevant evidence at the time. That's what skeptics do.

No - you claim I got it wrong, but there are enough corroborating witnesses who interpreted your statements in the same way. Your response to this was some paranoid blurt about "witch hunting".

And as in those threads, trying to one-up the discussion by repeatedly beating your chest and claiming that you're "doing skepticism the right way" because you're using the scientific method to analyze an issue that most of us regard as a cultural, non-scientific one will not work here either. Too many of us have personal experience in this arena; and it isn't your hard-nosed scientificality so much as your arrogantly dismissive attitude and marginalization of personal experiences that ticked so many people off. That attitude remains; so does the reaction.

Then (unlike the witch-hunting idiots) I made some effort to keep abreast of the issue, and changed my mind when better evidence became available. That's also what skeptics do.

I'm glad you figured that out - I'm not so glad that you refuse to allow that other people may have had "better evidence" before you did, and that you continue to refer to people who disagree with you as "stupid" and "idiots". I don't think that's what skeptics do, Kevin.

That or these threads attract a self-selecting population of people who want so badly to be self-righteously outraged that it colours everything they read, and they end up turning these threads into echo chambers where they hear nothing but each other's outraged noises.

Yes, you could not possibly have been wrong. It was actually a vast conspiring contingent of otherwise-thoughtful posters that were all bent on working together and shouting you down. Tell me more about these oppressors of yours.

It doesn't help that these people tend to have done no real research and have all kinds of non-evidence-based beliefs about underage sexual issues which they hold as articles of faith.

How about experience-based? Oh, wait, right - experience doesn't count. Forgot.

My experience has been that in these threads the bad posters tend to drive out the good.

The effect can't be too profound. You're still here, after all. Besides, experience doesn't count. I'd like to see a collated set of responses to a questionnaire about whether bad posters have been driving out good posters on this board before I'll concede the possibility of your assessment being correct.

 

[gtc]

GTC: Would you sleep with an implausibly mature twelve year old, if the relationship was mutually fulfilling and in no way exploitative?
DD: Sure, why not?
GTC: EWWWW! SHE'S TWELVE YOU SICKO!

I don't think I ever posted anything like that.

The problem is that all the research indicates that 12 year old girls or boys do not have the combination of physical, emotional and mental maturity needed to handle sexual relations (let alone the maturity needed to deal with a relationship that doesn't work out well - and many relationships between mature adults don't work out well).

The question about whether it is discriminatory to not allow a mature 12 year old to have consensual sex with an adult is moot - because it has not been shown that such children exist.

However, I concede that, if such a child existed, then it would be discriminatory to make a sexual predator person who wishes to have sex with a physically, emotionally and mentally mature 12 year old wait four years. In the same way as it is discriminatory not to allow hypothetical people who drive better drunk to drive while loaded.

In both those cases, the 'victim' of the discrimination is not suffering greatly and there are very good public policy reasons not to get rid of the law just because some hypothetical person might possibly suffer.

I would suggest that people who wish to have sex with 12 year olds are not the best judge of whether a 12 year old is physically, mentally and emotionally mature enough to have sex with a grown man.

 

[marksman]

I don't think I ever posted anything like that.

GTC, the quote you attributed to me was actually written by Kevin Lowe.

 

[gtc]

Sorry. I did know it was Kevin_Lowe who wrote that. I don't know how I managed to get it wrong.

 

[marksman]

So if I claimed that I was shot squarely in my unprotected leg at close range with a large handgun yesterday, but I have no sign of injury, the absence of evidence is not evidence that it never happened?

No, because being shot in the leg always results in physical trauma to the leg. As you concede (I believe) you have no evidence that there should always be evidence of anal rape in the form of anal tearing and semen.

If an anal rape happened as described, there would usually be tell-tale injuries.

"Usually" is not "always". The evidence does not conflict with her story, contrary to what you claimed.

Nothing I can find about anal sex or anal rape even indicates that the possibility exists

The quote you provided indicates that pssibility quite clearly by using the adverb "usually", which means less than "always".

My understanding of the procedure

I could care less about your understanding. I would like some evidence of what you claim.

That curious tunnel-vision is back. What kind of skeptic do you pretend to be? "No further analysis is needed?". What the hell?

Because I don't need to investigate anything to verify the statement of yours that you have the burden of proving. Namely, that the forensic evidence conflicts with her story. You have not show that to be true in any fashion.

Moreover, when the evidence we have is paltry (precisely because Polanski agreed to plead guilty and then fled the jurisdiction),as skeptics it behooves us to acknolwdge the paucity of evidence and conclude that further investigation is fruitless. Skepticism does not require us to engage in tea-leaf reading just because we have nothing else. And trying to figure out what happened thirty years ago based on a single unverified evaluation is a half-step above tea-leaf reading.

Your current excuse is "Look, he's guilty of something, because he pleaded guilty. No further analysis is needed! None at all! We shouldn't even look at the evidence! Isn't it enough that he's guilty of something? Stop thinking, quick!".

I never said that. I have consistently been saying that your statement that the forensic evidence conflicts with her statement is not supportable. Your attempts to drag me into a discussion of whether Polanski did commit rape is both goalpost shifting and futile, since the evidence is insufficient to make any conclusions on what happened thirty years ago.

What's so hard about admitting that the available forensic evidence supports Polanski's statements on these issues much better than it supports the girl's?

First, that's not what you claimed.
Second, what statements by Polanski do you refer? I could not compare the forensic report to his statements unless you provide such statements.

Is it really worth completely blowing your credibility as a skeptic or even a thinking human being to deny the evidence on the separate issue of whether anal rape took place as described?

I am unconcerned with your evaluation of my credibility as a skeptic and more concerned with your penchant for engaging in personal attacks rather than admit that you were unable to support your assertions.

 

[johnny karate]

Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year-old girl, and then feld from justice before he could be sentenced. That sodomy might have also occurred is immaterial to these facts.

So why do you continue to argue about this one particular aspect of an event that in no way changes the overall nature of the discussion about said event?

Bump for Kevin_Lowe

 

[Information Analyst]

Does it say how old it was?

If the semen were an old stain, then there would also be the question of whose semen it was.

"Stains several years old still give a positive reaction to the [acid phosphate] test while, in view of the extremely high content of acid phosphate in human semen, the test as conducted on the normal material found in indencent offences, can be regarded as being specific for human semen." Nickolls, L.C., 'The Scientific Investigation of Crime' (London: Butterworth, 1956)

 

[Information Analyst]

The wikipedia article on rape kits seems to indicate that semen can be detected for up to 72 hours after a rape, although possibly the technology was less sensitive in the seventies, and since this rape was reported fairly promptly I see no basis in what I currently know about such tests to think that they are likely to come back with a false negative. I would also like to think that if there was a good basis to think there might be a false negative that this would have been noted.

Nickolls (per previous ref) notes that semen, "in my experience, cannot be found in anal swabs after the lapse of much more than 24 hourse." That was the technology in 1967, so clearly applicable as a minimum to this case, which is apparently well within that time-frame.