The scenario I pictured of Judge Rittenband directing parties how to behave is the only way I can see that the Swiss request for the sealed testimony makes sense for the reason stated. What happened in open court that day, 19 September 1977, was perfectly fine.
Actually, I can think of another reason, but then it's a bit poorly stated in the Swiss press communiqué.
That has to do with the length of the sentence, as DrKitten previously pointed out. The
US-Switzerland extradition treaty specifies in article 1 par. 1:
An offense shall be an extraditable offense only if it is punishable under the laws of both Contracting Parties by deprivation of liberty for a period exceeding one year. When the request for extradition relates to a person who has been convicted, extradition shall be granted only if the duration of the penalty or detention order, or their aggregate, still to be served amounts to at least six months.
There's a problem with both sentences. First, the maximum sentence. Judge Rittenband said on 19 September 1977 in open court:
The statutory penalty for this offense by his plea is prescribed in Section 264 of the Penal Code, to be imprisonment in the County Jail for not more than one year or incarceration in State Prison. The law also allows for other alternatives.
(
transcript, p. 46)
The wording used is ambiguous as to where the one-year maximum applies to: only to County Jail or also to State Prison. AFAIK, US prison terms over one year have to be served in State Prison, whereas terms under one year can be served either in State Prison or in County Jail. And current DDA Walgren wrote in his affidavit (same link) that the maximum sentence is two years.
However, the wording in the transcript is slightly ambiguous and may have been more so in translation.
Then the other side: for extradition, the remaining sentence has to be at least six months. In Polanski's case, however, we don't know what the remaining sentence is, because he hasn't been sentenced yet. The extradition treaty gives no explicit provisions as to what then should be the criterion, so we'd have to go with what the reasonable expectation to the sentence was.
That brings us also back to the court session of 19 September 1977. The probation report that was before the court recommended only probation. Dalton, Polanski's lawyer, pled for probation. He also gave statistics on the 1976 cases (when in principle, time could be up to 50 years): 44 cases in LA County, of which none did time in State Prison (meaning their sentence didn't exceed 1 year), and of which 27% received only probation. DDA Gunson ended his plea with:
It appears that it was almost planned. If you consider the photographs, [...], based upon those facts, your Honor, the People are requesting that Mr. Polanski be placed in custody for a violation of Section 261.5, the offense that he has pled guilty to.
Judge Rittenband, finally, did a lot of pondering and grandstanding, and ended with deciding on the diagnostic evaluation (the 90 days) to guide him in sentencing, without saying anything concrete what he envisaged himself. And generally, a judge follows the advice such an evaluation yields.
The diagnostic evaluation recommended only probation, no time. After that, according to current DDA Walgren:
On 30 January 1978, Judge Rittenband met with the prosecutor and Mr. Polanski's attorney. In that meeting, the judge expressed dissatisfaction with the diagnostic report, which recommended probation, and told the attorneys that he thought Mr. Polanski's sentence should include time in custody.
(
link, p. 28)
Note that again, no concrete term is indicated.
DDA Walgren himself doesn't give any indication in his affidavit either how much time in prison he'd seek for Polanski, if even Walgren would be allowed to plead again on the sentence in case Polanski would return to the US.
Finally, current Judge Espinoza ruled in January 2010 that he would not sentence Polanski in absentia.
So, all in all, there is no concrete evidence that ever a prison term of over six months was sought for Polanski. Judge Rittenband and DDA Gunson are on record being in favour of prison time, but neither named a concrete term. Rittenband is dead. So what remains would be Gunson's testimony as to what he had in mind when he pleaded on 19 September for time. And that testimony could very well be sealed by the LA County Supreme Court.
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