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Could Polanski Soon Walk Free?
Roman Polanski’s surprise arrest at the Zurich airport could lead to a happy ending for the Polish filmmaker, The Washington Post reports. Polanski’s legal team has filed a motion to dismiss the charges that have followed him for 31 years, since he fled the United States after pleading guilty to sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old. "I think he will finally get his day in court," criminal defense attorney Steve Cron said, "and there's a good chance his case will be dismissed or the sentence will be commuted to time served." Poland and France are making a joint appeal to the United States to have Polanski released from detention. A HBO documentary raised questions over judicial misconduct in Polanski’s 1977 case, and his victim, Samantha Geimer, has joined the filmmaker’s bid for dismissal after Polanski and she reached a settlement outside of court. The Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby director won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2002 and was in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award when he was detained by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities. Extradition could take months.
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WOWWWW! Osama Bin Ladin's still on the loose, but we nailed that Roman Polanski! Way to go U.S. authorities! I feel sooooooo much safer now that I think I'll start sleeping with all my doors unlocked! What could possibly go wrong now that we got that arch-criminal, international poon-tang terrorist Polanski? This must mean Osama gets his around....2033?
I started to suspect a while ago that there is no Osama Bin Laden.
Perhaps there once was...
Either that or, a. our military is very inept, or, b. our intelligence community is very inept, or, c. Bin Laden really is the Boogeyman.
But, you're right, at least we have Polanski, a TRUE scourge, in our grasp!
It's true, until we find Osama Bin Laden, all criminals should be allowed
to get away with ANY thing they want. Hopefully you have a 13-year old
girl to donate to the cause, I'm sure there are some pedophiles on this
board that would like to meet her.
Not that I disagree with your stance, cry, but doesn't the statue of limitation make this mute? Just asking, I really don't know.
My skepticism about US authority has nothing to do with pedophilia. This country just had a visit from Gaddafi, leader of a terrorist state, a man who facilitated and possibly helped plan the murder of hundreds of people. He spoke (if that's the word for it) before the UN General Assembly. US authorities didn't arrest him. Gaddafi, unlike Polanski, has oil to sell. It is a strange set of priorities when authorities dog Polanski, who got a blow job from a kid, but give a pass to mass murderers. Do you get it now?
oakely: there is no statute of limitations on felonies. only on misdemeanors and civil cases.
Thanks, hithere. I thought it was only murder that has no statute of limitation. My bad.
I don't get the impression anyone posting is an attorney yet, nor am I, so I'll add my two cents in the meantime: There is a statute of limitations on most felonies ... including this one. I think it is negated when someone is charged, cops a plea, and runs.
Aside from that, IF its true that there were court irregularities in his case, AND he has had no repeat legal issues like this in the past 31 years, AND his victim long ago forgave him (along with a big $ settlement) AND if the truth is as murky as the posts here suggest ... then parole the man and avoid another prolonged media frenzy ... even if the media does need the money.
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Considering that the victim has asked the charges be dropped, all I see is this costing a lot of money and nothing much coming out of it but some press for the prosecutor.
Just tell him to stay out of the US. He is, after all, a convicted rapist.
I never thought 'Chinatown' was so hot. 'Tess' was ok.
You hear that pedophiles? Living like a King in France
for 31 years is considered time served for drugging, raping
and sodomizing a 13-year old kid. Apply for a visa to
France and molest away!
Oops, just make sure you are rich and famous first and
that you can bribe your victim.Perhaps audition for
"America's got talent" first.
nah, I hear the real criminals are on Dancing with the Stars.
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I am torn.
He pleaded guilty, then fled. The victim forgave him years ago. (He admitted wrongdoing but rejected punishment and, for everyone's sake, the victim doesn't decide when the law applies.)
Hollywood says his art should be judged separately and that he's already had his share of tragedy but this is the same group that called itself courageous for making a movie about a gay politician 20 years after his assassination. (That doesn't seem like courage to me.)
Most people consider this crime the worst. Once convicted, offenders require protection in prison and the public require yearly registration once released. (All citizens should be protected from those who solve issues through violence and have protection of children.)
My gut says that even if the case is immediately dismissed in court, he shouldn't escape the process. Opinions that I often respect disagree..
He was going to be given a very long sentence after agreeing to a plea bargain with the opposing the lawyer. The judge wasn't going to accept the plea bargain.
Look up the judicial misconduct in this case.
That sounds like a good idea.
There is nothing contradictory with saying that The Pianist was an amazing and illuminating piece of art, and also Roman Polanski is a self-confessed rapist who fled the country to avoid prosecution.
There is also nothing contradictory with saying that his victim forgave him long ago, and also that he deserves to be punished for his crime.
I hear ya. It's difficult for me to compartmentalize in this case. It's not a logical dilemma but a moral one. Rapists can create imaginative and appealing works, fine. My trouble is excusing the rape and subsequent crimes enough to allow for the free creation or celebration of later works. Some of the arguments I've heard/read this morning indicate I should excuse it -- even totally.
Doesn't matter whether the victim forgave him -- decades later.
A modern Western country should have a zero-tolerance policy for child rape. Period.
I shy away from zero tolerance, even as rhetoric, because it leaves no room for questions. My gut tells me you're right..the victim shouldn't ultimately decide and it's cases like this that further gray instead of better define punishment.
i apologize for being unclear. zero tolerance applies strictly to punishment. the trial determines just how guilty someone is, for example, whether there were mitigating circumstances. in this case, polanski pled guilty.
some crimes are so heinous that those who are found guilty of them should enjoy no mercy. it seems to me that sodomizing a 13-year-old girl while she's screaming at you to stop is sufficiently heinous.
She didn't forgive him, she said that the whole experience was so horrible she wants it to be over and doesn't want all this publicity anymore.
I just revisited this thread to see where opinions were earlier in the case. I guess that's even more reason to move forward...
Only the poor better follow the law. The rich & well connected walk.
I've read for years that the poor are less likely to get away with it -- in terms of FBI crime numbers, witness statements, they are much more likely to get blamed.
Throw the little critter in jail, not to worry Eric Holder will pardon him.
In liberal society, it's hard to tell what is and is not ok.
Rape and sodomize 13yo and skip the country when found guilty - ok if you are a liberal filmmaker.
Tap your foot under a bathroom stall door - charges filed if you are a republican
Boyfriend runs a male prostitution ring out of your house - ok if you are a liberal politician.
Drop your pants and demand young woman to "suck it" - ok if you area liberal president
Drive drunk off a bridge and leave woman to die - perfectly ok if you are a liberal icon
It's not the crime that the DB crowd holds you to, it's who does it. To bad laws in liberal land aren't meant to be applied equally.
I would like to know which "liberals" you claim are arguing to get this wealthy rapist let off the hook. Can you name one or two? I mean one or two actual people in the real world, not one or two of the horrid demonic boogie men who infest your talk-radio-damaged imagination.
Debra Winger.
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I so agree with " winston1". Throw him in JAIL, keep him there forever. Too harsh? Send him to Hollywood. Left-wing crazies can babysit him.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is appealing to US authorities to drop proceedings against Polanski. He is also considering a direct appeal to 0bama to end the proceedings against the filmmaker.
Radoslaw Sikorski is married to journalist Anne Applebaum, a columnist for the Washington Post and Slate, something she forgets to mention in her article praising Polanski and looking to help get the charges dropped.
Typical liberal media, no scrouples what so ever.
This whole thing will be a puppet show:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/09/where-is-all-the-intellectual-fire-p ower/
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What are we going to do about a President and an administration that systematically falsified "intelligence" that got us into a war that has killed thousands of Americans, who knows how many other nationals, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars? Why, we'll rail against liberals and Hollywood and blow jobs. We're Americans and we take morality seriously.
Zero tolerance for child rape.
Zero.
Doesn't matter if the victim forgave him -- decades later.
Doesn't matter whether he was tricked.
Doesn't matter who he is.
That people seem to want to treat him differently because he's famous makes my blood boil.
Oh, the irony of unintended consequences; he may actually go free now.
why does anyone have sympathy for him?
because times have changed from then to now; 31 years have passed in exile; he was set up; the victim admits he was set up; get over it!
Why did the family settle for money if they really wanted justice??? Why if the victim want it forgtten???????? Why , if he was set up, is the victim against his arrest??????????
First of all the victim never admitted to setting him up - that is crap. He drugged and raped a thirteen year old. HEr mother was completely innocent and never set her child up. You are falling for defense attorney smoke and mirrors. Poor 41 year old movie producer the helpless victim of 13 year old girl! Remember the kid even lacked the mental ability to consent to sex, it wouldn't matter if she did but she definately did not. She was forced. The guy is an admitted rapist. He should do the time like anyone else.
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Polanski's offense of morality
Displays a Swiss legal duality:
For him, no escape;
But when bankers rape
Like clockwork, it's time for neutrality.
News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8
It's terrible that we are still pursuing this man after all these years. He is a greatdo film maker. Why do we care about his pedophilia and rape that happened so long ago?
"Why do we care about his pedophilia and rape that happened so long ago?"
Because christian extremists see things "other people" do only in white and black...and they never forgive.
Obviously people care, because of the fact he was rich he and able to flee and then he was embraced and protected by France despite the fact the raped a child. Our country's laws were flaunted and ignored. It is called a sense of "justice" that many of us ordinary people share, and has nothing to do with being any kind of Christian.
The jerk pled guilty to raping a thirteen year old girl and then fled before he was sentenced. All the rest of whether the judge was a nice guy or not, is defense attorney smoke and mirrors. The man was 41 years old, and drugged a kid and raped her. At the very least this creep should never again set foot in the USA without threat of immediate arrest. The fact that diplomats are portraying this sick guy as a victim is an outrage.
Yes, he suffered the loss of his mother to the Nazis and his pregnat wife was murdered by the Manson family. But those experiences should have made him a man of compassion and a protector of the weak and defenseless, not a rapist. There is a concept " the long arm of the law" -if you commit a crime you are vulnerable to arrest wherever you may go.
I agree with everything you write, and also...
Europe letting Polanski hide in plain sight also pisses me off!!
he doesn't get rewarded for evading police for 30 yrs w/clemency!
your username is hilarious.
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My letter to LA District Attorney:
CONGRATS on getting Polanski.
Rape is rape. Justice must be served. He doesn't get rewarded for hiding in plain sight in liberal Europe for 30 years and then request clemency because the case was so long ago.
That rewarding him for running and HE RAN!
If he had stayed and appeal like regular folk, he would have been out of jail a long time ago.
HE RAN!
No more special treatment for celebrities (with hard times in their lives). Guess what we've all had hard times in our lives!
Again CONGRATS on getting The Fugitive!!
Hey gaysforpalin:
I agree! He shouldn't get to walk just because he isn't an Osama Bin Laden. He is a rapist who ran to avoid serving time for a crime he pleaded guilty to. The French have been complicit in his guilt for 32 years. He pleaded guilty people. If he was innocent he should have pleaded not guilty.
Whoopi Goldberg doesn't agree. Whatev.
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Fail.
We live in a world that is often violent toward women and children. When a person pleads guilty to a crime then he or she should serve their sentence. You can't compare this to Osama Bin Ladin and other such issues. They are apples and oranges. Polanski shouldn't get a free pass. The French are complicit in his crime and are showing tolerence toward crimes such as rape.
I would hope that LA has better sense than to rehear this case and let a child molester go free.
I think all of America is sick to death of blood sucking lawyers who sic the worst of the worst back on the public because these horrible people have money to pay the lawyers.
AND, I am from the legal profession.
It is sick, sorry and I hope all those save the child vigilantes ask for the disbarring of any lawyer or judge who goes along with this.
The man did it, he should pay for his crime. Just because he escaped to another country because he was so rich, and by the way owned his own plane to get away, if that is how he did it...................
Maybe the teabaggers and birthers could focus on this issue, the seem to be the only ones with balls enough to get out in the street and say something............not to say I agree with them, but at least they are not just sitting there or killing themselves and their whole families.
This is an outrage.
If the guy did not want to get caught, he should have stayed in his luxurious manse.
He is rich, make a part of his case to pay for the extradition.
He already seems to have paid restitution, but taking money for sex with one's under age child is a felony, and they need to go out and pick up moms as well, and remind the victim that if she lies, she will not be able to spend what she might have left, because she will be in jail WITH moms.
Just because a child commits a felony (selling sex for money then extorting money for that crime) does not make the act of child molestation go away as a crime.
This case needs to be precendence setting, and that precedence needs to NOT be that if you have enough money to run off to France, you can escape your crimes, especially child molesting.
Thank you.
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