Roman Polanski, Hollywood, and Justice

[yllus]

I think it'd be helpful for this "debate" for us to make a clear note of what the court system of California put on the record back in 1977 regarding the Roman Polanski plea bargain.

Below are links to the official plea transcript with Mr. Polanski acting as "The Defendant". Still below that are the grand jury minutes from Ms. Geimer's testimony before the court on what happened that day.

You may choose to believe that Mr. Polanski was dragooned into pleading guilty or that Ms. Geimer chose to lie for whatever reason before the court. You cannot, however, rewrite the facts of what were officially recorded before the court.

Mr. Polanski did in fact enter a guilty plea for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old. Ms. Geimer did in fact testify that Mr. Polanski performed oral, vaginal and anal sex upon her, having earlier provided her champagne and drugs. And Ms. Geimer did in fact testify that she was an unwilling participant.

The Smoking Gun: Roman Polanski Plea Transcript

MR. GUNSON: The elements of the crime of unlawful sexual intercourse are: One, that on March 10th, 1977, you committed an act of sexual intercourse; two, that the act of sexual intercourse was with the complaining witness in this case; three, that she was under the age of 18; and four, that she was not your wife.

Do you understand that to be convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse by a jury, all twelve jurors would have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that teach and every element of the crime occurred?

Do you understand that?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

...

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

THE DEFENDANT: She was 13.

MR. GUNSON: Did you understand that she was 13 on March 10th, 1977, when you had sexual intercourse with her?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

The Smoking Gun: Unsealed Grand Jury Minutes

Q: What happened after that?

A: He started to have intercourse with me.

Q: What do you mean by intercourse?

A: He placed his penis in my vagina.

Q: What did you say, if anything, before he did that?

A: I was mostly just on and off saying, "No, stop." But I wasn't fighting really because I, you know, there was no one else there and I had no place to go.

Q: What did he say, if anything?

A: He didn't answer me when I said, "No." I think he was - he was saying something, but I wasn't listening to him and I can't remember.

...

Q: What happened then?

A: I think he said something like right after I said I was not on the pill, right before he said, "Oh, I won't come inside you then."

And I just went - and he goes - and then he put me - wait. Then he lifted my legs farther and he went in through my anus.

Q: When you say he went in your anus, what do you mean by that?

A: He put his penis in my butt.

Q: Did he say anything at that time?

A: No.

Q: Did you resist at that time?

A: A little bit, but not really because -- (pause)

Q: Because what?

A: Because I was afraid of him.

 

[Codewiz]

But he is a great director. And it has been such a long long time. Can't we just forget this ever happened?

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: between
Polanksi didn't admit to rape. He said he had a consensual sexual encounter with what turned out to be a 13 year old.

You are either lying or severely ignorant.

The Smoking Gun: Roman Polanski Plea Transcript

Polanski needs to be brought to justice. No matter what she looked like then, he knew she was only 13 years old.

How many of his supporters have considered the effect of his 30 year flight on the victim? If he hadn't run away, she might have been able to put the past behind her a long time ago. Instead, because of his actions, she's had to deal with continuing media coverage for most of her life.

By the way, "The Fearless Vampire Killers" sucked.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

As for the the victim wanting it dropped - she's not in charge of our justice system. They could take her wishes into account when it comes to sentencing, but she has no say in who we prosecute. It's called justice for a fugitive. This isn't about whether or not victims have the right to give forgiveness, it is about whether criminals can hide from their due punishment long enough to escape it. Im not sure what the California penalty for flight?. Even if the state of California decides to stick with the original plea deal, they can still charge him for flight from prosecution.

It does seem that the victim wants it buried: she for some reason doesn't relish the thought of her name and likeness being projected and opined on by Nancy Grace's dumbass smirking chimp face and other shows 24/7 due to something that happened 3/4 of her life ago. Its a shame, but her 15 minutes of fame are having been raped by Roman Polanski. I can see why she doesnt want this brought to light again.

Some think his long incarceration would benefit nobody, it would protect nobody, and it would cost millions of dollars to a bankrupt state. Maybe so..

But, who, exactly, has been carrying this on for so long? Roman Polanski. It would only take a moment of clarity and a 10 hour plane flight to cleanse himself of this 30 year wronging of not just that woman, but our justice system. He probably could have spent a small time in prison (given the forgiveness of the victim) and had this all long behind him by this time. He chose to hide like a coward.

This was a choice of his own volition, and that he is now of advanced age before being brought to justice is not an extenuating circumstance but a consequence of his fugitive actions. He's gotten away with more than most people - even most celebrities - could get away with in the same circumstance, and that he is now subject to justice for his actions does not entitle him to any sort of consideration.

 

[Vette73]

Yes; Polanski should be in jail

No; we did not need another Polanski thread

 

[yllus]

Actually, considering the vast amount of revisionism seen in multiple threads about Mr. Polanski, I think we sure as hell did need another thread to highlight what's actually on the record.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: yllus
Actually, considering the vast amount of revisionism seen in multiple threads about Mr. Polanski, I think we sure as hell did need another thread to highlight what's actually on the record.

Nonsense, raping a 13 year old isn't a crime for the rich and famous. You didn't get the memo?

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: between
Polanksi didn't admit to rape. He said he had a consensual sexual encounter with what turned out to be a 13 year old.

No, actually he said he knew she was 13 at the time.

Overall, I am sympathetic to Polanksi, and I hope the Swiss come to their senses. He doesn't deserve jail time. People who refer to him as a pedophile are morons, and can be ignored.

Glass houses and all. Oh, NAMBLA called, they want to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[Pliablemoose]

BERN, Switzerland ? 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.

Text




Pedolanski will remain in prison for the time being, who in the world would have expected the poor guy wouldn't be allowed out on bail/bond?

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

BERN, Switzerland ? 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.

Text




Pedolanski will remain in prison for the time being, who in the world would have expected the poor guy wouldn't be allowed out on bail/bond?

He doesn't exactly have the best record of sticking around for court judgments. No surprise here.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Patranus
Only a Liberal would think to set a man free who drugged a 13 year old girls, raped her while she was crying and screaming for him to stop,

There's no excuse for the crime Polanski ACTUALLY committed, but YOU are a lying, pathetic piece of shit. ALL of your posts include your contrary-to-fact embellishments.

Now: Please SHOW us where in the grand jury testimony the girl said she was "crying and screaming for him to stop?" Come on. I dare you.

Answer: She didn't. She was crying PRIVATELY, not in front of Polanski. She wasn't "crying for him to stop." She TOLD him (didn't "scream") "No." And she made up a story that she had asthma to try to get Polanski to stop.

Again, none of this remotely excuses what Polanski did. But YOU are garbage. You don't care about truth. You just care about trying to score points with lies. You are the quintessence of trolldom.

The truth was the girl was 13 years old and a CHILD. Polanski drugged raped the child... Who the fuck cared if she cried in front of him or at home? Does it really concern you that much that she wasn't crying for him to stop????!?!? Polanski is a sick bastard who never served his sentence.

1) Forget the Polanski case for an instant and ask yourself the general question:

In a thread on a particular news or political issue, is it acceptable to make things up and then post them as fact?

My opinion is that any poster who continually shows a disregard for the truth by knowingly or negligentlly making false statements in threads should be banned. And none of us should tolerate such behavior, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the troll's overall opinion.

I've seen Patranus do just this sort of thing in at least three different threads. I've even corrected him on his facts, whereupon he has continued to dissemble in the same thread.

I don't care whether you're far right, far left or anything in between. All of us should take a zero-tolerance approach to those who lie here.

2) Your statement, "Polanski . . . never served his sentence," is not correct. Polanski never received a sentence.

The plea agreement among the prosecution, defense, and the judge was that (a) Polanski would plead guilty, (b) would go to jail BEFORE SENTENCING, (c) while in jail, he would undergo psychological evaluation, and (d) assuming that the conclusion of the evaluation was that Polanski did not represent a risk to repeat his offense (that statement is an inference on my part, based on all of the information I've read about his case), Polanski would be sentenced to the time actually served.

I've read (but have not seen an "official" report) that the psychological evaluation determined that Polanksi did not exhibit any sexual pathology regarding young girls (if I could find that link now I would post it here).

The judge, however, changed his mind a day before the sentencing date because (he reported) he was concerned about how such a light sentence would reflect on him. And he said he was going to instead sentence Polanski to 50 years in jail.

Now, those of you who think that such behavior on the part of a judge is fine and dandy because Polanki's act was monstrous really ought think about why plea deals are made in the first place. In case you don't know, the answer is: so that objectives that go beyond the scope of a particular case can be achieved, in return for which the offender receives a lighter sentence than he or she ordinarily would if the defendant went to trial and was convicted on more serious charges.

In this particular case, the external objective was to spare the young victim the ordeal of a trial. This was the primary desire of the victim's family. I think that such an objective was worthwhile. Do you?

You can't have it both ways. You can't both spare the girl AND also try and convict Polanski on one or more of the original serious charges. The two are mutually exclusive.

Polanski abided by his side of the agreement (the flight from the U.S. is a separate issue) and the young girl was not further traumatized.

Thus, if Polanski is extradicted, he should be sentenced under the original agreement - to time served. But he SHOULD be prosecuted on the flight charge.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Polanski and the victim settled out of court and the victim received an undisclosed amount of cash. The victim has also publicly called for the case to be dropped. Not that I agree with anything he did, but apparently he paid a price that satisfied the victim(Morally, that is all that ever need be done in a criminal case). Why punish him further?

You can't settle a criminal case out of court.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I for one think Polanski committed a serious crime that warrants serious punishment. In today's terms (the culture was different in the 1970s, and sentences were lighter for these types of offenses), I see this as a 5-10 years in prison offense.

That said, it's clear the case was riddled with judicial misconduct, and I believe it's undisputed that Polanski, who had served 42 days in jail, was promised no additional confinement by the judge if he pled guilty (even the prosecutor agrees this occurred, though he himself has since admitted lying about other aspects of the way the case was handled in order to exaggerate his role in the process). He fled only after it was clear the judge intended to buckle to public pressure and renege on the deal. In the meantime, Polanski has never been accused of similar conduct in the 32 years since this offense. On balance I find it hard to get that incensed about this. I think it makes sense to bring him back and bring this process to a conclusion, including sentencing him and forcing him to register as a sex offender, but I don't see the benefit to a lengthy confinement.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Polanski and the victim settled out of court and the victim received an undisclosed amount of cash. The victim has also publicly called for the case to be dropped. Not that I agree with anything he did, but apparently he paid a price that satisfied the victim(

1. 1. The civil case is a separate issue from the criminal case.
2. There is no actual evidence that Polanski ever paid the agreed settlement ($500K + interest). Some people might wonder whether the victim's request in the late 90s to let the case rest might have been a condition of receiving the settlement to which she was already due.

Morally, that is all that ever need be done in a criminal case). Why punish him further?

You have it wrong -- that's the object of a civil case. In a criminal case, it is the "people's" sense of justice that must be satisfied, not the individual victim. Here we have a victim who would have liked very much to put the whole experience behind her. The fact that she hasn't been able to do that is not the fault of the prosecutor but due to the behavior of the perpetrator -- i.e. he fled the jurisdiction and also stalled (perhaps even didn't pay) the payment he agreed to in the civil settlement

 

[jayjay85]

chris rock told it how it is to me http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...es-roman_n_307816.html

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Polanski and the victim settled out of court and the victim received an undisclosed amount of cash. The victim has also publicly called for the case to be dropped. Not that I agree with anything he did, but apparently he paid a price that satisfied the victim(Morally, that is all that ever need be done in a criminal case). Why punish him further?

You can't settle a criminal case out of court.

Well, in ONE sense you can.

Remember the Kobe Bryant rape case? All of us know that the reason Kobe was never prosecuted is that he came to a civil agreement with the victim, who then refused to cooperate in Kobe's prosecution, thereby scuttling any potential criminal action.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Polanski and the victim settled out of court and the victim received an undisclosed amount of cash. The victim has also publicly called for the case to be dropped. Not that I agree with anything he did, but apparently he paid a price that satisfied the victim(Morally, that is all that ever need be done in a criminal case). Why punish him further?

You can't settle a criminal case out of court.

Well, in ONE sense you can.

Remember the Kobe Bryant rape case? All of us know that the reason Kobe was never prosecuted is that he came to a civil agreement with the victim, who then refused to cooperate in Kobe's prosecution, thereby scuttling any potential criminal action.

You can't make a civil settlement containing a clause requiring one party to refuse to cooperate with a criminal prosecution of the other party. It's contrary to public policy and barred by law. Otherwise every rich defendant would always buy off the witnesses.

IIRC, the reason Kobe wasn't tried in a criminal case is because the accuser was somewhat crazy, had 3 different men's semen on her undies, possibly from the same day, and had been clinically diagnosed with depression. Prosecution probably didn't see much of a case with that person as their star witness. Prosecutors claim she was still a credible witness but the judge allowing in recent evidence of her sexual dalliances was a blow.

ED: after reading up prosecutors say she refused to testify but this was before any civil agreement was reached.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Polanski and the victim settled out of court and the victim received an undisclosed amount of cash. The victim has also publicly called for the case to be dropped. Not that I agree with anything he did, but apparently he paid a price that satisfied the victim(Morally, that is all that ever need be done in a criminal case). Why punish him further?

You can't settle a criminal case out of court.

Well, in ONE sense you can.

Remember the Kobe Bryant rape case? All of us know that the reason Kobe was never prosecuted is that he came to a civil agreement with the victim, who then refused to cooperate in Kobe's prosecution, thereby scuttling any potential criminal action.

You can't make a civil settlement containing a clause requiring one party to refuse to cooperate with a criminal prosecution of the other party. It's contrary to public policy and barred by law. Otherwise every rich defendant would always buy off the witnesses.

IIRC, the reason Kobe wasn't tried in a criminal case is because the accuser was somewhat crazy, had 3 different men's semen on her undies, possibly from the same day, and had been clinically diagnosed with depression. Prosecution probably didn't see much of a case with that person as their star witness. Prosecutors claim she was still a credible witness but the judge allowing in recent evidence of her sexual dalliances was a blow.

ED: after reading up prosecutors say she refused to testify but this was before any civil agreement was reached.

You can't "officially" do a lot of things. But do you seriously think that during private discussions between attorneys for Kobe and the victim the subject of whether the woman would cooperate in the criminal action never came up? And of COURSE she refused to testify BEFORE the civil agreement was reached - I'm sure that was an (unwritten) pre-condition before the agreement was formalized.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: shira
The judge, however, changed his mind a day before the sentencing date because (he reported) he was concerned about how such a light sentence would reflect on him. And he said he was going to instead sentence Polanski to 50 years in jail.

Supposedly. It's just an accusation and means nothing and is put into some suspicion after another prosecutor has admitted to lying.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: shira
The judge, however, changed his mind a day before the sentencing date because (he reported) he was concerned about how such a light sentence would reflect on him. And he said he was going to instead sentence Polanski to 50 years in jail.

Supposedly. It's just an accusation and means nothing and is put into some suspicion after another prosecutor has admitted to lying.

Actually I believe the part about the judge was pretty well established. Fleeing the country was simply the wrong response.

 

[Sinsear]

Originally posted by: between

Getting fucked by Polanksi, was potentially an excellent career move.


My ideal solution would be for him to get back to France, and continue making wonderful movies.

My ideal solution would be for you to share a cell with him. Maybe it would help advance your career.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: shira
The plea agreement among the prosecution, defense, and the judge was that (a)
The judge, however, changed his mind a day before the sentencing date because (he reported) he was concerned about how such a light sentence would reflect on him. And he said he was going to instead sentence Polanski to 50 years in jail.

What it boils down to is that Polanski fled, not because the judge had in fact engaged in any misconduct but because he feared that the judge was about to do so.

In that case, his remedy was appeal. Pure and simple. The likelihood that a sentence of 50 years would have been upheld was very small...not to mention the fact that he would have probably been allowed to remain free on bail during the appeal.

In this particular case, the external objective was to spare the young victim the ordeal of a trial. This was the primary desire of the victim's family. I think that such an objective was worthwhile. Do you?

It may have been worthwhile but not necessarily decisive.

Polanski abided by his side of the agreement (the flight from the U.S. is a separate issue) and the young girl was not further traumatized.

In as much as Polanski appeared to have been unwilling to live up to his civil agreement, thereby exposing her to more publicity when she had to go to court again, I'm not sure I would agree that he abided by his side of the agreement. In fact, I'd say that protecting the girl from the ordeal of public exposure proved to be a somewhat misguided consideration.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: shira
The judge, however, changed his mind a day before the sentencing date because (he reported) he was concerned about how such a light sentence would reflect on him. And he said he was going to instead sentence Polanski to 50 years in jail.

Details on the news related to the Swiss turning down any release has that P was supposed to have 90 days pych evaluation as a result of the plea bargin.

After about 45 days, he was declared competent and released by the evaluation team.
The judge wanted him to serve the full 90 and was going to order prison time for the remaining time that he wsa supposed to be under evaluation.

P fled.

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: shira

Thus, if Polanski is extradicted, he should be sentenced under the original agreement - to time served. But he SHOULD be prosecuted on the flight charge.

I could live with that. Either way he dies in prison.

 

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: Patranus
Gotta love the Liberals in Hollywood.

Only a Liberal would think to set a man free who drugged a 13 year old girls, raped her while she was crying and screaming for him to stop, and then fled the country instead of facing justice.

Oh, but it was 30 years ago, and it wasn't that serious of a crime.........right........

Where are all of the womens groups on this one?!?!?

moral equivalence destroys standards. that's why liberals love polanski. he's their new poster child (molester).