Well, the cultural elite in Hollywood and in Europe is going to the barricades to defend Roman Polanski. The phrasing here is very telling:
Meanwhile, the international outcry for Polanski's release radiated from its epicenter in Zurich, where red "Free Polanski" buttons made the film festival rounds Sunday and jury president Debra Winger (!) issued a statement accusing the Swiss judiciary of "philistine collusion. [emphasis mine -- rd.] [...] We hope today this latest order will be dropped. It is based on a three decade old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by and wait for his release and his next masterwork."
"Philistine collusion." Wow. It takes some nerve to accuse people who want to bring to justice a fugitive who drugged, raped and sodomized a frightened 13-year-old girl of being wrong because they're tacky. In Hollywood, Paris, Chappaquiddick and other cultural capitals, perhaps it's to be expected that great men -- at least great men beloved of certain segments of the left --can't be held to the same standards of the law as everybody else. (I don't like it either when people on the right resort to the same kind of logic to defend our own). But thank goodness that's not the case in l'affaire Polanski. I wasn't losing any sleep over the fact that Polanski walked the boulevards unmolested by the L.A. County DA's office, but the fact is, that SOB has been thumbing his nose at justice for over three decades. If that were my child he'd done that to, you'd better believe I'd be happy he now faces extradition. He's had 31 years of undeserved freedom. I hope he's enjoying the inside of that Swiss jail cell -- and that he'll soon be checking into an L.A. cell too.
As for the pro-Polanski documentary from earlier this year, read Salon's devastating takedown of it here. I'm going to post an especially relevant excerpt below the jump, because it contains some strong language taken from the victim's grand jury testimony:
For now, the Los Angeles judge has injected a dose of reality into the debate. But "Wanted and Desired" seems to have inserted into the public consciousness the idea that Polanski, an irrepressible European, had been naughty during a colorful time, and that he has been toyed with by a monstrous legal system. Creepy and disturbing, the film does show us a few of the director's moral warts. But it leaves the strong impression that Polanski was a wronged man, jerked around by a cartoony, publicity-hungry judge to the point where fleeing was his only viable option."Wanted and Desired" is directed by Marina Zenovich. Previously she had made well-received documentaries about the Sundance Film Festival and France's charismatic Bernard Tapie, who owned a chain of health stores and sponsored a famous cycling team, which included Tour de France winner Greg LeMond. Tapie later got into trouble with the law for fixing soccer games, and after spending time in prison, became an actor.
In "Wanted and Desired," Zenovich casts Polanski, whose face repeatedly fills the screen with a Byronic luminosity, as a tragic figure, a child survivor of the Holocaust haunted by the murder of his wife, the actress Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson family. His friends are uniformly supportive: "This is somebody who could not be a rapist!" one exclaims.
As for the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, why, he's a risible self-promoter. If Polanski is Byron, the judge is an Oliver Hardy or a Billy Gilbert, all but twiddling his tie in a series of ever-more-comical photographs. He actually kept a scrapbook about the celebrities who came through his Santa Monica courtroom. He had two girlfriends.
Now, that's one way to portray those two men -- and one that Polanski's current lawyers would prefer. But there's another way, too: You could show one as a child-sex predator who drugged a 13-year-old girl with quaaludes and champagne; lured her to pose for naked photographs; ignoring her protests, had sex with her; and then anally raped her.
The other could be cast as a canny jurist -- possibly a brilliant one, smart enough to have gone from high school directly to Harvard Law and graduated so young he wasn't allowed to take the bar exam -- who may have gone too far in his intent to block off the legal escape hatches celebrity wrongdoers use.
The truth is somewhere in between, but it's probably a lot closer to the second version. Yet that initial stark contrast -- the tragic hero, the goofy jurist -- permeates the film. Documentarians should have a wide leeway to argue their case the way they want, but there's a point at which ethical lines are crossed. Zenovich, like many other chroniclers to the stars, seems to have been blinded by her contact with Polanski.
Here's an example: The word "sodomy" is briefly referenced in Zenovich's documentary, but it's a somewhat ambiguous term, and it's never explained. Zenovich has fun flashing bits of the victim's grand jury testimony on the screen, but she never gets around to using this exchange from that testimony, which was made public in 2003 and published by the Smoking Gun:
"Then he lifted up my legs and went in through my anus.""What do you mean by that?
"He put his penis in my butt."
In the girl's grand jury testimony, which is slightly sickening to read, she also said that she had repeatedly told Polanski no, but that she was too afraid of him to resist.
It's a drag to include a scene of anal rape of a 13-year-old in your moody documentary about such a Byronic figure, but it's also fairly relevant.
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Noas - I posted several times in these threads the link to the motion to dismiss, which lays out the misconduct extremely well. You should read it. However, it doesn't matter whether you think that there was misconduct, because as I noted, and as you appear to have ignored, the LA Superior Court has already agreed there was misconduct. To remind you - Judge Peter Espinosa said that 'Having reviewed all the evidence in this case, there was substantial misconduct that occurred in the pendency of this case.' As such, the chance of Polanski being sentenced to extra jail time is considerably reduced, which ties into the main argument I have been making, which is that wasting time and money on this is pointless.
I'm not going to get dragged into a discussion of whether each count of misconduct was important - that's a value judgement, and your values clearly differ from mine, and there's no likelihood that either of us will change. For the avoidance of doubt, though, I consider that we don't take judicial (or prosecutorial, or police) misconduct nearly seriously enough, and that this has led to a state of affairs where they blithely abuse their power, frequently causing more damage than that caused by the evils they're supposed to be fighting. Radley Balko collects a lot of these cases; again, I think you should read them and consider whether authority should be more tightly trammelled than it is, but I doubt you will. Nonetheless, my main argument here is the pragmatic one, and unaffected by my views on misconduct. The Court has acknowledged the misconduct. Any competent lawyer should be able to use this to reduce the chance of Polanski getting extra time to virtually nil. As such, let's stop wasting time on it.
As for my reputation, thank you so much for your concern, but I doubt it'll come as a surprise to anyone who knows me and who feels the urge to read this far down a comment thread on a website, that I find due process to be important, and that I think that wasting money and time on prosecuting a 32 year old case with no particular prospect of changing the status quo, against the victim's directly expressed wishes, is pretty pointless. I post infrequently, but when I do it's under my own name as I have no problem with people being able to tie back my words to me if they wish to.
Mort - Good to see you here! You should come over to Talkleft; there's lots of attorneys there discussing this. I agree that the best and most honourable course would have been for Polanski to challenge the misconduct back in 1977. However, he did not, and fled. The victim thinks that his flight was understandable in the circumstances, as does the original prosecutor. I think it was cowardly, but understand why he did it, and have more blame for the judge than him. However, this is irrelevant. The point is, he fled, and 32 years on we're where we are now. He hasn't, as far as we know, reoffended; the victim has forgiven him, moved on, and wants the whole case dropped. The outcome is still unsatisfactory, but is unlikely to be improved. Assume, for the sake of argument, that he withdraws his plea. Would you, as an attorney, wish to prosecute a 30 year old case where your strongest evidence - the Grand Jury statement - had been made by a 13 year old girl, who, now an adult, has made it clear that she will not co-operate with any further efforts to prosecute the accused? Particularly when you'll be going up against the best defence lawyers in the country, against a background of judicial misconduct? I don't think that sort of case is likely to get anywhere. It will mean that an injustice has been done, sure. But that happens, sometimes - particularly when those who are supposed to uphold the law choose to break or bend it - and there is often nothing we can do about it except accept it and move on.
And with that, I'm leaving this thread for good. There's more about Polanski at Talkleft, and I'll join in again if Rod posts something new, but I've made my point here clearly enough, and I doubt anybody else is likely to read anything else posted.
I think it was cowardly, but understand why he did it, and have more blame for the judge than him.
I think that says it all--more blame for the overzealous civil servant than for the child rapist.
Oh, and this:
He hasn't, as far as we know, reoffended
Actually, he statutorily raped Nastassja Kinski, whom he bedded first when she was just 15.
I know, I know, you'll have excuses for that too.
Just popped in here because I want to see Polanski vindicated for his escape, not flight, from the corrupt US justice system that stitched him up. Even the deputy prosecuting attorney said on film that he could understand why Polanski left under those circumstances.
But what do I find here? Here I find largely a barrel load of vindictive hate-mongers who spout rubbish like "40 years", probably because it makes 'em feel all, kinda, self-righteous inside. Has Roland Freisler been reincarnated by any chance? If not, his dark soul certainly lives on in some of these comments.
For those who still need their daily fix of prurience, read polanskimotion.pdf (from about page 75 on), watch Wanted and Desired. What the Americans are trying to do to Polanksi ain't extradition, it's extraordinary rendition.
The basic circumstances of this case are that Polanski non-consensually raped a 13 year old girl. he also took pictures of the girl topless and esposed (child porn). Would Vogue magazine have published pictures of a fully exposed 13 year old? He sodomized her because he didn't want to get her pregnant. It doesn't matter that she was not a virgin at the time of her rape.
Polanski is upset that he got caught and would have ended up in prison. If he was innocent, he would have returned to the USA before he was arested and would have cleared his name.Whatever pleas agreement should have been given to him in writing by the DA. Since Polanski can't produce any such documentation, he shpuld be returned to the US and receive his sentance to the max (4 years) for statutory rape. By fleeing and getting caught, he lost any leverage he had.
Debra Winger has a 12-year old son named Gideon Babe Ruth Howard.
Can a movie director "put his penis in" Gideon's "butt"?
And if that's not okay, why not?
If Debra resists the rape of her young son, would that be
"Philistine Collusion?"
I would like to see leaders in the Jewish Community condemn both Roman Polanski and Debra Winger, just as leaders in the Black Community were expected to condemn O.J. Simpson.
Where are the loudmouth Jewish feminists on this?
Oh, and any actor that has worked with Roman Polanski since 1977 is a pig, and that means you HARRISON FORD and ADRIAN BRODY.
I can almost understand why Brody did it, he couldn't get arrested at the time, and 6 years after winning the Oscar,
still nobody knows who he is.
But Harrison Ford was the biggest star in the world at the time,
he is a multi-zillionaire, he did not have to work with that pedophile.
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