Roman Polanski poll

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

[Poll #1463911]

My answer is HELL YEAH HE SHOULD GO TO JAIL. I'm pretty disgusted with all the excuses people are making for him, and I can't help but wonder how they'd feel if it were their daughter that was raped.

Comments

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Those who defend Polanski are basically a bunch of star-fuckers who want into his cultural pants.

The same thing happens whenever someone big in sports does something bad. They should apparently be above the law.

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

As I recall, he jumped ship to escape his jail sentence. So yes do not pass go, do not collect 200, just go to jail.

And if there was judicial or prosecutorial misconduct, then there is this funny little thing I like to call an appeals process. Also this little thing called the bar, which takes any misconduct reports and investigates them.

*eyeroll*

[acesspadesdice.livejournal.com]

Had he been convicted at the time, if he was in the jurisdiction I am in, his conviction would now be regarded as a spent conviction anyway. Seems like the public money would be better used to get someone who is a real and present danger off the streets. The victim doesn't want the whole thing dredged up now anyway.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Just because others have committed worse crimes doesn't mean we should ignore this one.

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

The victim should have absolutely no say in what happens in the criminal trial. Crimes against people aren't just a problem of a victim, they are an affront to the state and the legal system.

And meanwhile, how do you know if he's a real and present danger or not? I can't recall the stats off hand but child molesters don't rehabilitate that well.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

I saw some headline about this earlier today, and I thought it was about the guy who did the documentary on the dolphin slaughter in the local Japanese town. His movie is being shown here, and apparently he's up for arrest on trespassing charges. But that's not Polanski, so...

...what about this? (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,1036,polanski-victim-pleads-forgiveness,30539) Apparently his victim wants him to be forgiven and have the charges dismissed.

I'm not supporting this guy; he raped a girl and deserves to be punished for said rape. I just find this tidbit to be fascinating: his victim wants it to end. Surely someone has an opinion on it.

[lux-angelis.livejournal.com]

Of course she wants it to end. One of the reasons most cases don't wind up going to trial is because by the time they get around to being in court the victim is in the recovery stage and just wants their life to go back to being normal. Going to trial forces them to relive the experience and brings back everything that they went through. That said, I'm of the opinion that all rapists and pedophiles should be at least physicall (not chemically) castrated and/or shot in the penis and bled to death (or similar for women).

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I think he needs to stop fighting this and take his punishment like a man so that everyone can move on, especially the victim.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Being your Swiss-based member, I'm amused by the developments.
I answered "I like pie" for a lack of an option saying "Other".

By "Other" I mean that it was rather ugly to invite Polanski to the Zürich film festival, then arrest him at the entrance. Nice trap.

That said, anyone who does a crime should totally go to jail, period.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Well "I like pie" is the new "Other", get with the times.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I also like pie.

I really don't know enough about it. In general, right now he's in Swiss prison I guess. I do hope he gets extradited, but that's with my very limited knowledge over the whole issue of how he was apprehended, how other people involved feel, etc.

In general, given the timeframe this rates pretty low on importance value.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I have taken an unpopular option on the grounds that is what the victim wants.

In an accusatory legal system what she wants must come first.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I think this is about more than just her and what she wants. If someone commits a crime, especially one this awful, they should face the consequences.

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

In this case the accusation is by the people of California, technically speaking.

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

Great director, has gone through some really nasty events in his life but...

Sorry, he did confess to doing it and then ran away.

Probably the best article that makes a very good black and white argument is the following:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's another good article about it.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty amazed at all the bad arguments for Polanski that are floating around, and one of them would be that the victim claims she has forgiven him.

It's not up to the victim, it's about the law. He needs to go to court, regardless of what the verdict becomes in the end. If you drug and rape underage girls, you have to face the music eventually, even if those girls are in their forties today and may have gone through years of therapy.

It basically signals to anyone so inclined that it's okay to drug and rape girls, as long as you can pay your way out of it. This is not the first nor the last case where powerful people with money abuse the powerless.

Polanski is a fucking important example of crimes that are committed all the time, right now, without prosecution.

I agree pretty much with this article's take on it. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092802403.html?sub=AR)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

OK, seeming that I'm a person who has made a "bad argument", I offer you the opportunity to change my opinion.

You have claimed: "It's not up to the victim, it's about the law.". I read this as an inquisitorial and positivist justification for legal norms. To me you are claiming that the law does not require a moral foundation, other than that it is the law (and so spake Judge Dredd). Further you are claiming in lieu of an actual victim making accusations that the State may intervene on their behalf whether the person in question wants them to or not.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Poor thing. What a bad luck that he wasn't caught in Britain. Then the minister of justice would've probably pardoned him because he would have "felt" it is "the right thing to do", and besides the act happened many years ago, which makes Polanski "morally innocent and technically innocent". Reference: Megrahi, Shields, etc.

/snark

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Here, let's make everyone happy. Let them extradite him to the US and then sentence him... to a five picture deal with Paramount, with an option for two more.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, his guilt isn't even in question.

Had he been Gary the Kid-touching Carpenter most of his supporters would vanish. What he did was wrong by modern and past standards. Running and hiding shows a complete lack of penitence.

How can you demand forgiveness when you've spent your entire life avoiding punishment? Some people just like to think of every criminal as Jean Valjean. Well drugging and raping teens isn't quite like stealing a loaf of bread.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Greeks were all for pedophilia in past times. That's what their Pederasty more or less was.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He has clearly shown a lack of penitence for his crime and had full knowledge it was wrong when he fled. Yes, he should be in jail as it is not proper to have different standards for the wealthy and the poor. If he was Joe Pole, he would not be excused here. It is only because he's a rich SOB that he is.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

I think you mean "thirty-one", and you can see who voted for which option by clicking on the "View Answers" link above the poll results.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

What the victim wants is irrelevant considering he's already been found guilty. The state is responsible for carrying out sentencing, so it stopped being her concern the minute he entered a guilty plea. Allowing those who can successfully evade justice until the victim gives up to go free is not an effective way to run a judicial system.

[oblyvia.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why this is even up to questioning. He RAPED A CHILD. His supporters clearly do not have children, or they are so star struck that they have lost all sense of decency. What the victim wants is irrelevant; many rape victims decide they don't want to go through the process. If he gets away with rape, why shouldn't everyone else?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What the victim wants is irrelevant

Isn't that what rapists say?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Some of the things I've seen talk about how the judge didn't like the deal the prosecutor had taken, and wanted to get a conviction of a famous dude.

http://able2know.org/topic/136766-1

But as with every aspect in the life of this Polish director, the case for him is as riddled with complexities and contradictions as the case against.

But then came his fateful liaison with 13-year-old Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), a would-be actress and model, whom he met at the Mulholland Drive home of Jack Nicholson (who was not present). Polanski, then 43, had been assigned to photograph teenage girls in Los Angeles for the magazine Vogue Hommes. She and Polanski agree that sex took place, and that it was consensual, though Polanski gave the girl champagne and a Quaalude to relax her.

He was arrested and pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse, after charges of rape and sodomy were dropped. Samantha's parents asked in court that he should not be imprisoned. Polanski spent 42 days in jail undergoing evaluation, but rather than face the judge, he headed for the airport and flew to France.

His reasons for fleeing remained unclear until last year when an astonishing documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Its director Marina Zenovich had persuaded Samantha, now in her mid-40s, to discuss the case on camera. She has publicly forgiven him and supports his attempts to have the charges dismissed.

Also in the film are Polanski's defence attorney Douglas Dalton, and Roger Gunson, the assistant DA who was prosecuting him. Remarkably, both men agreed that justice had been undermined by the presiding judge, Laurence Rittenband. At one point in the film, Gunson describes the legal proceedings as "a sham".

"It isn't about whether Polanski is likeable or not," Zenovich told me. "It's about whether he was treated fairly under California state law. And clearly he was not."

Rittenband (who died in 1994) had a taste for celebrity cases, and wanted to make his name as the man who jailed Roman Polanski. He was egged on by an ugly-minded media, which dubbed Polanski "the poison dwarf", stressed his foreign origins, and described him in terms of thinly veiled anti-Semitism. And the judge, it turned out, belonged to an LA country club that barred Jews from membership.

Crucially, no one in California had served jail time for a comparable offence in the previous two years, and Dalton secured an agreement with Rittenband that Polanski's 42 days was sufficient time served. Polanski, it now appears, fled the US because it was clear that the judge had reneged on this agreement and planned to incarcerate him anyway.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/6240914/The-hunt-for-Roman-Polanski.html


I didn't realize -- he was married to Shannon Tate, who was pregnant with his child when Charles Manson's followers murdered her. I'd no idea.

I think that, as with almost everything, this is more complex than it appears to be on the surface.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

"It's about whether he was treated fairly under California state law. And clearly he was not."

Bullshit. It's about whether or not he raped a 13 year old girl. That's far too young to consent to anything. He did it and he needs to suffer the consequences.

[lordtwinkie.livejournal.com]

the girl was raped, i'm not even talking statutory i'm talking "no please stop no" raped, he asked her if its okay to stick it in her butt, she said no and he still did it, he fucking sodomized her against her will who the fuck can actually condone this?

read her testimony

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html

its all right there